A Trail Of Destruction
by starsthatburn
Summary: A hostage situation in City Hall leaves behind a battered, broken sheriff, and a mayor wracked with guilt. Trigger warnings for violence and gun threats and general angst. Very slow-burn swan queen.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This is set in Storybrooke mid-season 1, roughly around the time of episodes 12 and 13 (Skin Deep/What Happened to Frederick) - I am, however, completely bypassing the majority of the Kathryn storyline. She's still in town and she's still friends with Regina, but she won't be getting kidnapped, and she's also still unaware of David and Mary Margaret's affair._

_**Trigger warnings** for hostage situations, guns and general violence. This whole fic will overall be quite angsty, so here's warning for that!_

_I hope you enjoy - please feel free to give feedback in reviews to let me know what you think / any suggestions you might have._

_Love! x_

* * *

**A TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION**

**Chapter One**

'Regina,' the blonde slammed through the door to the mayor's office with a piece of paper clutched in her fist. 'What the _hell _is this?'

Regina lifted her dark eyes up from the clock in the corner of her computer screen, where they'd been resting for the last half an hour while she had calmly waited for this conversation to occur.

'I don't know, Miss Swan,' she said, raising her eyebrows. 'But it does look an awful lot like the email that I sent out this morning.'

'Yeah – the email that you sent to everyone on the town council,' Emma said, slapping the piece of paper down between them, 'that says that I will be running a meeting on crime in the community this afternoon. I did _not _agree to that.'

'And here's me thinking that I'm the mayor, and that I don't actually require your approval before I arrange meetings,' Regina stood up as she spoke, walking over to the nearest filing cabinet and drawing out a thick bundle of papers. 'How foolish of me.'

'Regina, will you cut the crap, please?' Emma snapped, leaning forwards with her hands on the edge of the vast desk. 'You know that I wouldn't have agreed to this. You _know _that I've never run one of these meetings before.'

'I also know that you rarely show up to them either, let alone actually keep your eyes open during them,' the mayor said coolly, sitting back down at her desk and crossing her legs over. 'I thought that the experience might be enlightening for you.'

Emma narrowed her eyes for a moment, dragging them down Regina's tightly coiled frame. The brunette simply smiled back at her; that harsh, cold smile that always served as the most irritating barrier between the pair of them.

'You're really doing this?' Emma muttered, leaning further across the desk with her eyes unblinking. Regina didn't flinch. 'You're _seriously _so hell-bent on punishing me that you're going to force me to do this? Just so, what - you can watch me squirm?'

'As much as I know that you like to _think _everything revolves around you, Miss Swan, I'm afraid it's not quite that simple,' Regina picked up a pen, letting it form a bridge between her two index fingers. 'We need to have this meeting. And yes, it does just so happen that you've only been sheriff for a couple of weeks now – but I think you're ready to handle this one on your own. Don't you?'

Emma raised an eyebrow before drawing out a single word. 'Right.'

'Besides,' Regina said in her usual, clipped tones. 'Watching you squirm isn't exactly on my agenda for today. I have a lot of other important business to be getting on with, unfortunately.'

Emma's teeth gritted together, a hard muscle working in her jaw. 'Wait. You're not even going to _be _there?'

'And why would I need to be there, Sheriff?' Regina's brow furrowed in the most infuriating mock-confusion that Emma had ever seen. 'You're mature enough to try and raise my son, but you still require babysitting at a simple town meeting?'

'This is ridiculous,' Emma ground out. 'If you want to get back at me this badly, can't you just do what normal people do and slash my tyres, or spread a rumour about me having a drug habit or something? What the hell is setting up a phony town meeting going to accomplish other than making mine and everyone else's lives a whole lot more difficult for two hours?'

'Exactly that,' Regina said coolly, allowing herself to enjoy the startled expression that came over the sheriff's face at this admission. 'It's going to infuriate you. And I enjoy things that infuriate you, Miss Swan.'

Emma took a step back from the desk, crossing her arms across her chest. 'You're pathetic.'

'And you're going to be late,' Regina smiled tightly. 'Go on, dear: the meeting's in under an hour, you know. You'd better go and get yourself some notes together.'

For a moment Emma could only stand there, her jaw angrily clicking as she struggled not to scream profanities across the room at the most agonisingly annoying woman that she had ever come across in her entire life. She watched the smirk on Regina's face flicker and then drop completely.

'Miss Swan,' she said in a low voice. Her dangerous voice. 'I'm not playing some game here: if you do not head up that meeting, then I will consider that to be a deliberate neglect of duty. And I don't suppose that you want to lose your position after fighting _so _hard for it only a few weeks ago, do you?'

Some small muscle ticked in Emma's forehead. She could feel her own nails digging into the skin of her arms, even through the fabric of her brown leather jacket. She gritted her teeth together, taking a step away from the mayor's desk without once taking her eyes off of the woman sat proudly behind it. When the door slammed shut, Regina allowed herself to slump backwards in her hard-backed chair. A twisted smile was playing about her lips. She listened to the sound of Emma's furious footsteps stomping down the hallway, resting that pen back between her hands and almost wishing that she could be at the meeting to see just how badly it went.

Before she gathered up her possessions in order to go home for the rest of the day - just in case Emma stormed back into her office so as to drag her down to the meeting herself - she reached for her cell phone.

_Sidney. There's a town meeting at 1pm. I need you to go and then come by my office afterwards._

She had barely replaced the phone on the desk when it buzzed with a reply.

_Consider it done_.

* * *

Emma sat on a bench outside City Hall, her thumb scrolling furiously across the screen of her phone as she waited for Google to produce some suitable discussion points regarding petty crime in small communities.

'God damn it,' she muttered to herself, letting the seventh page of entries load while she turned back to the email that Regina had sent her that morning. Her green eyes scanned back over the proposed agenda:

_Our newly appointed sheriff, Emma Swan, will be heading up this afternoon's meeting regarding crime in the community. I have no doubt that this will be eye-opening for all involved. The rising levels of truancy at Storybrooke Elementary, as well as the issue of recurring graffiti at the Storybrooke Cannery, are the two main topics to be discussed. Any other issues that either the sheriff or the councillors deem to be appropriate should be debated as necessary and then noted down in the meeting's minutes. The sheriff will return these to me by 9 a.m. sharp on Monday._

Emma rolled her eyes. Even by Regina's usual irritating standards, this new scheme was a doozy.

She glanced back down at her phone to see that even Google had failed her this time. She sighed, leaning back on the bench and looking up into the damp Maine sky, feeling the weight of it tugging against the bottom of her blonde curls. Scraping her hair up into a ponytail, she looked across at the where the clock tower was crawling closer to one o'clock. A groan escaped from her throat, one that she didn't bother to smother: the meeting room would need setting up soon, and it would no doubt be her job to do that as well.

She reluctantly stood up from the bench, gathering her various rain-speckled papers into her arms before glancing up at the large window that framed the mayor's office. The lights inside were suddenly off: Regina had left.

Rolling her eyes to herself, Emma began to stomp back into the building with a haze of rain and irritation surrounding her. _Two hours_, she told herself. _In two hours, this'll be over._

* * *

At five minutes to one, a heavy-set man stood waiting outside of City Hall. From beneath his pale grey baseball cap he watched as people began to arrive for the town meeting, thrusting his hammy fists deep in the pockets of his green jacket. Small beads of sweat were already forming along his greying hairline and he wiped them away with the edge of his sleeve, gritting his teeth together. A faded badge that read _Game of Thorns _was stitched onto the breast pocket of his shirt.

He looked up at the yellow building before him and wondered if the mayor was already in there. His hands were shaking in his pockets, no doubt as a result of the several shots of whiskey that he'd had before leaving his shop, and he clenched them more tightly until they finally laid still. One knuckle knocked against cold metal. He swallowed, taking a breath, before forcing himself to walk those last few steps into the building.

* * *

'Archie,' Emma said with surprise, looking up at the tall man who was struggling to fold away his umbrella. 'What are you doing here?'

Around them several workers were still laying out jugs of water and spreading the quickly photocopied agendas that Emma had thrown together in the last five minutes across each chair. Rows of benches to seat up to fifty people had been laid out by the time Emma had gotten there: she could only laugh at their optimism. Now, in the few minutes before the meeting was due to start, only ten other people had walked into the room. The red-headed man who was due to have a session with her son that very evening was the latest of them.

'Regina asked me to be here,' he said as he approached, smiling apologetically at her.

'Regina doesn't _ask_ for anything,' Emma said dryly, glancing back down at her crudely scribbled notes. She had been trying to remember them before Archie had walked in – unfortunately, she was realising that she didn't have enough written down to actually justify memorising them.

'She _suggested_ that I should be here,' Archie corrected himself, leaning on his black umbrella. 'She thought that you might appreciate my opinions on the truancy levels at the elementary school, given that I have sessions with several of the perpetrators.'

'My son included,' Emma muttered, folding her notes away. Archie could only shrug. 'I suppose you should take your seat, then. The meeting's about to start and I need to—'

'Excuse me,' a voice, one tinged with an unfamiliar accent, came from behind Dr Hopper. She frowned at the interruption, leaning to one side to see a heavily-built man in his late-forties watching her. He had a grey cap on, one that he had pulled down in an attempt to cover his eyes. Even so, Emma could see that they were slightly pink and blinking rapidly.

'Hi,' she said, taking a step towards him as Archie sat himself down in the front row. 'Are you here for the meeting?'

'Yes. I… um.' He faltered. 'Is Mayor Mills going to be here for it?'

Upon hearing that name Emma inwardly winced, her irritation immediately returning to her. An inexplicable desire to add yet another name to Madame Mayor's ever-growing list of enemies suddenly struck her, and her green eyes narrowed.

'Oh yes,' she said coolly, watching as the man straightened up. 'Of course she is. No good mayor would _ever_ miss something as important as this. Why don't you take a seat – the meeting's going to start in a bit.'

He nodded and took up his position in the back row, pulling his cap even lower about his eyes as Emma slowly walked to the desk that sat at the front of the room.

'Okay, everyone,' she said loudly, taking in the half a dozen people who were sat before her. Some of them she recognised from other council meetings – most of them, however, she hadn't seen before in her life. 'I suppose we should, you know… get this thing started.'

She sat down at the desk, facing the sporadically placed onlookers, and took a deep breath. Placed in front of her on crumpled paper, her notes looked even more pathetic. She'd be lucky if this meeting lasted longer than fifteen minutes if she was forced to follow them alone.

She turned to Sidney, who had inexplicably shown up at the last minute and offered to be the meeting's minute-taker, and nodded for him to proceed.

The first five minutes alone seemed to drag along as Emma mumbled and bullshitted her way through what she assumed Regina meant by 'recap the events of the last meeting'. She had been there, as far as she could remember – but that was about as far as she had gotten in her preparations. She could see people exchanging confused looks ahead of her as she talked, but she still ploughed on with her eyes down, wishing that she'd thought to wear her more powerful red armour as opposed to the battered old brown leather jacket that she'd thrown on at the last minute that morning.

'Now, onto the next point. Dr Hopper is here to—'

'_Excuse me_.'

A voice from the back of the room interrupted her once again. Snapping her head up, Emma glared at the grey-faced man who was fidgeting in his seat in the back row.

'There will be time for questions during the discussion portion of this meeting,' Emma snapped, rolling her eyes to herself. 'Now, as I was—'

'When is the mayor going to get here?'

Emma's eyes widened in exasperation. '_Soon_. But I doubt she'll appreciate you interrupting her every five seconds any more than I will, so can I ask you to please shut up for a moment and let me talk?'

The man fell silent. Emma gritted her teeth together, before inviting Archie to stand up and say something that might actually help the meeting along.

Sidney furiously tapped away at his keyboard as Mrs Carter, the school's vice-principal, began to launch a tirade against Dr Hopper in response to his calmly-voiced suggestion that the more 'troubled' children at Storybrooke Elementary perhaps needed to be included more in their class activities. Emma watched her round face getting progressively redder as she defended her school and its flawless teaching techniques, trying not to roll her eyes. She had heard what Henry had to say about her – she knew that Mary Margaret was one of the only competent teachers in the whole school.

Just as she was scribbling down a vague note to herself that she should buy her roommate a gift of some sort for putting up with this woman's nasal voice day in and day out, Emma was momentarily distracted by a thud from the back of the room. She glanced up to see that the man from the flower shop had stood up and was waiting for her to notice him.

'Sorry,' Emma said, raising a hand to stop Mrs Carter's ramblings for a moment. 'Is there a problem back there?'

'When is Mayor Mills going to get here?' the man spat out, his hands trembling by his sides. The room collectively groaned.

Emma stood up, leaning forwards against the edge of the desk.

'Look,' she said in a low voice. 'You're _clearly_ not here because you have any serious opinions on the graffiti issue down by the docks. You have some issues with Regina, which, you know, isn't entirely surprising. But this is _not _the place to address them. Now, I'm going to ask you to leave, and when Regina decides to show up, you can speak to her about it then.'

The man raised his eyes for a moment, annoyance flashing through the pinkness. 'But—'

'_Go_,' Emma snapped. 'Now.'

Heads swivelled as they waited for the man to act. He simply stood there for a moment, clenching and unclenching his fists against his thighs. Then, with a small shake of his head, he pushed his way out of the benches and began to walk towards the open door at the back of the room.

'Right,' Emma sighed, sitting back down again. She threw a half-hearted smile towards Mrs Carter who was, no doubt, inwardly laughing at what an incompetent teacher she herself would make. 'Mrs Carter: would you like to continue with—'

And then she stopped. Ahead of her, the man had reached the double doors and, with those two shaking fists, pulled them closed and locked them. Before he had even turned around Emma could see the heavy metal object in his hand.

She threw herself to her feet without thinking, her eyes wide. 'Gun – _gun! _Get down!'

The sound of the gunshot rang down the street. As a dozen different people immediately dialled 911, they each heard a click as their calls were rejected by Emma's cell phone, sending the frantic messages to the emergency back-up team half a mile away instead.

* * *

'Look,' Emma said, trying to stop her eyes from settling on the bullet that was now lodged in the ceiling above her. 'Why don't you just try and calm down, and then—'

'Where is she?!' the man shouted, holding up the gun between them. Every other person in the room sat completely still, most of them now crouching on the floor between the benches. Emma stood alone at the front of the room, utterly exposed and knowing without question that there was no way that she could reach her own gun before he pulled the trigger of his.

'We need to—'

'You said she was coming! Where is she?'

Emma swallowed, watching the gun as it moved in his shaking hand. He had pushed his hat back from his face and those pink eyes were terrifying, verging on deranged. She knew that if she uttered a word about Regina leaving the building, then he'd only go right after her. And like hell was she having that on her conscience.

'I don't know,' she said quietly, holding her hands up. 'I'm sorry. I really don't know. I thought she was coming but obviously she's been—'

'Don't lie to me!' he snarled, taking several steps forwards through the room. As he walked past them each person flinched, letting themselves shrink back against the floor. Glancing to her left, Emma saw that even Sidney was crouched below his desk. The only person left facing him was her.

'I'm not—'

'Give me your gun, sheriff,' the man said. He sounded almost calm until he realised that Emma wasn't moving. 'Come here and _give me the goddamn gun!_'

She jumped and began to walk out from behind the desk, stepping towards him with her hands still outstretched.

'Mr French,' a small voice made the man snap his head to the right. It was Archie, crouching down by his feet in the front row. 'Moe. Really. You don't have to do this.'

'You be quiet,' Moe snapped, turning back to Emma with his gun still pointing between her eyes. Gritting her teeth together, she kept walking until she was stood directly in front of him. He moved forwards, sliding his free hand beneath her jacket until he found the metal object that was resting in its holder at the side of her jeans.

'Good,' he said, motioning for her to take a step back before placing it in his pocket. 'Now we can all wait for Regina to arrive, can't we?'

Emma flinched. 'And… if she doesn't come?'

'She will. You said so.'

'But if she _doesn't_?'

The man blinked. 'Then there's going to be some trouble, isn't there, sheriff?'

Outside of the room Emma slowly began to hear the sounds of nervous chatter. Engines were running in the street below. Catching sight of a flashing light out of the corner of her eye, she sucked in a breath as she realised that someone had called the police out to them. Moe seemed to realise it at exactly the same moment and his face quickly clouded over.

'God _damn it_.'

'Moe,' Emma said slowly, letting her hands fall to her sides. He watched her with narrowed eyes. 'Look – whatever Regina did, we can sort it out. Okay? I promise you. We can—'

'You don't know!' he snorted. 'You have no idea what she's like!'

'Actually, I kind of do,' she said, raising her eyebrows. 'Better than most. But even I wouldn't—'

'She's _ruined me_,' he snarled, closing the gap between them with the gun still outstretched until he could press it hard against Emma's forehead. She swallowed. 'Do you realise that? She's destroyed _everything_.'

'What has she done?'

'My shop,' he shook his head. 'I'm going to lose it. She's refusing to pay me and I'm going to lose everything.'

'I don't understand…'

'No, of course you don't. You wouldn't.' He leaned forwards into Emma's face, grinding the metal of the gun against the front of her skull. 'I have a loan from Mr Gold, sheriff. I have a loan that needs paying off this week, otherwise he'll take my van and he'll take my shop, and I'll be ruined.'

'Then surely Mr Gold is the one who—'

'The mayor owes me money,' he exploded, angry globs of spit raining down on Emma's face. 'She employs me to look after her garden. She had me do a whole week's worth of work – a _whole week_ – and then wouldn't pay me. I need that money. I need that money to pay Gold and she is refusing to pay me, because she _says _that I did a bad job.'

'And did you?' Emma asked before she could stop herself. Moe narrowed his eyes, removing the gun from Emma's forehead and holding it upright beneath her chin instead.

'No,' he hissed.

There was a pause.

'I wonder,' Emma muttered, not blinking, 'why I don't believe you.'

The butt of the gun whistled through the air. She heard the crack of it against her temple before she felt it.

A gasp shot through the room as she fell to the floor, clutching her hands to the side of her head. She could feel the blood trickling down into her closed eyes. Moe stood over her, pointing the gun down towards her with a surprisingly steady hand.

'Get up,' he said. She opened one eye, glaring up at him.

'Go fuck yourself.'

His response was to bend down and grab hold of her hair, tugging her bruised face up towards him.

'Get,' he muttered, squeezing her cheeks between his fingers, '_up_.'

Swallowing down the blood that was clinging to the back of her throat, she struggled back to her feet. Moe pressed his face back into hers, a smirk twisting about his lips.

'Good girl.'

He moved behind her, holding the gun out to the back of her skull as he finally spoke to the rest of the room.

'Now, everybody,' he said calmly, sneering down at the people quivering between the rows of benches. '_That _is what is going to happen any time that anybody tries to talk back to me. So I suggest, if you want your sheriff to still be in one piece at the end of the day, that you all stay quiet and do what I say.'

Emma gritted her teeth, the dull throb of her temple already spreading like smoke through the rest of her head. Every person there avoided eye contact with her.

'All I want,' Moe muttered against her ear, his breath hot and sticky, 'is to have a word with the mayor. So let's get her here, shall we? And then we can all go home.'

There was a brief silence as the room waited for what he would say next. Emma reached up a shaking hand, wiping the trail of blood from her temple.

'Moe,' the same small voice came from the front row. Emma snapped her eyes onto Archie as he stood up, terror grabbing hold of her stomach with fiercely drawn claws. 'Come on, now. Why don't you just try and take a deep breath, and listen to me.'

'Sit down, Hopper,' the man said, digging the gun more fiercely into the back of Emma's neck. Emma shook her head at the man stood before her.

'You don't have to do this,' Archie said, taking half a step forwards. 'We can talk.'

Moe only scoffed.

'Oh, _can_ we?' he asked smoothly, and Emma felt the presence of the gun disappear from behind her skull. It came back down on the curve of neck a second later and she thudded back to the floor, a low howl erupting from her lips as an electric pain shot down her spine.

Archie fell into silence, sliding back to the ground with his eyebrows knitted together.

Moe drove the toe of his heavy gardener's boot into the small of Emma's back, watching her as she jolted backwards. Her moan, even as she desperately tried to smother it, rolled across the marble floor. As she curled herself back into a ball, she felt Moe kneel down beside her once more.

'Such authority you have in this town,' he muttered, pushing a blonde curl away from her clammy forehead. 'They really respect you, don't they?'

'Go to hell,' she hissed from between her teeth, unable to stop herself. Moe's eyes clouded over once more, just before his fist thumped down against the side of her nose. The crack that followed echoed off of the walls. Emma sucked in a breath between her teeth, forcing herself not to scream as she felt the hot, sticky blood running down onto her lips.

'I repeat,' Moe said loudly as he stood back up again, driving his boot into the back of Emma's ribs for good measure as he did so. 'Every time that someone steps out of line – she pays.'

Emma winced as he leant back over her, immediately registering the presence of an object before her closed eyes. She waited for the cold metal of the gun to press against her bruised skin.

Instead, however, she opened her eyes to see her own cell phone hovering in front of her.

'What's that for?' she choked out, licking blood from her lips. She watched the smile that began to spread across Moe's jowls.

'You're going to call the mayor for me.'

'No. Actually, I'm not.'

'I think,' he hissed, pushing his knee into the small of her back, 'that you _are_.'

'Bite me, florist,' she spat out, sitting herself upright and glaring directly into his face. 'I know that I have some problems with Regina – but if you think that I'm going to drag her into _this_? Then you're even crazier than I thought.'

'Crazy? Me?' Moe said, raising his eyebrows. 'That's the first time I've heard that.'

'Well, it won't be the last,' Emma said, reaching up to the throbbing lump on the side of her head. 'So you may as well shoot me now, if that's your only bargaining chip. Because I'm not calling her.'

Moe's jaw clenched for a moment, gauging what to do next. He blinked. The whole room waited.

And then the gun was pointing at Sidney. Emma's breath caught in her throat.

'I think you will,' Moe said, holding out the phone once more. 'Do it. Now.'

Emma watched the terror building in Sidney's eyes – the one man in the room whom she knew was on her side. Her ally, he'd called himself that night at Granny's. She blinked frantically, the throbbing of her temple already starting to deafen her. She shook her head to try and clear some of the haze that was clouding her vision.

'_Call her_.' The phone was pressed into her hand and she swallowed, glancing down at it. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought that she saw Sidney scrubbing a tear away from his cheek.

Gritting her teeth together, she pulled up Regina's cell number onto her screen and let it ring. She pleaded, squeezing her eyes shut with the effort, that the mayor wouldn't answer.

As usual though, Regina did everything that she possibly could to irritate her. She picked up on the second ring.

'Already struggling with your one, simple task, Miss Swan?' was her greeting of choice.

'Regina,' Emma said, her eyes fixed on the gun that was still hovering between Moe and Sidney. Moe watched her, a lazy smile on his lips. 'I… I need you to come to the meeting. Please.'

'And why would I do that, dear?' Regina, sat in her study back at home, lounged back in her chair and slowly crossed her legs over.

'Because,' Emma's voice cracked momentarily as she tried to think of a plausible reason. She quickly realised that she couldn't. 'Because I need… I just need some help with it.'

Regina blinked, pursing her lips. 'You're asking for my help running the meeting?'

'Yes,' Emma choked out, closing her eyes. She heard the sharp inhalation of breath down the line, followed by a pause.

'But you don't ask for my help,' Regina said slowly. 'What's happened?'

Moe heard this all too clearly, and his eyes narrowed. As he glared at the phone in her hand, Emma could see Sidney flinching out of the corner of her eye.

'Nothing's happened,' Emma said, struggling to keep her voice steady. 'There's just a lot of people here… There's a lot of questions that I can't… I don't… I just need a hand. That's all.'

'Miss Swan, is everything okay?' Regina asked, leaning forwards in her seat. She could hear a slight tremble in the sheriff's voice, a wobble that the strong-willed blonde would never normally allow her to hear. Behind that, in the meeting hall, there was only silence. Something wasn't right.

'Everything's fine.'

'Are you sure? Because you sound odd.'

'Everything's fine, Regina, now will you please come to the damn meeting?'

There was a long pause. Emma wiped another smear of blood from her mouth, her hand shaking.

Eventually the mayor inhaled, pressing her face as close to the phone as she could.

'Emma,' Regina spoke softly, so quietly that Moe couldn't have heard it. 'I want you to cough if something's wrong.'

Moe frowned, leaning forwards to try and catch what was being said. Emma blinked, taking a deep breath.

'Everything's fine. I promise you,' she said. And then a tiny choking sound came from her throat. Blood trickled down from her broken nose.

Regina sat bolt upright in her chair. 'I'm calling the police.'

This, Moe heard. A low growl came from his chest and suddenly all Regina could hear was a thud, followed by a sharp cry from Emma. There was a clatter as the phone fell to the floor. Then the line went dead.

Regina staggered to her feet, grabbing her car keys with one hand and phoning the emergency police number with the other as she ran to the front door.

* * *

Holding Emma up off of the floor by the scruff of her neck, Moe hissed directly into her face, '_Useless_. You useless piece of _shit_.'

'It's not my fault that she didn't buy it,' Emma choked out, blinking rapidly. The gun was back beneath her chin, twisting against the thin flesh there.

'And who else's fault is it?!' he sneered, raising the gun above his head as he pressed his nose against Emma's cracked, swollen one. 'The only person that we have to blame for this, Emma, is _you_.'

The butt of the gun fell down, hammering into her cheekbone with the ferocity of a bullet. Emma thudded back onto the floor with a moan, fire burning through her skin.

Moe stood over her for a moment, his back turned against the rest of the crowd. With the gun aimed down at the back of the blonde woman's head, hardly shaking as he released the safety catch, he inhaled sharply through his teeth. He didn't notice as Archie rose from the floor, raising his umbrella above his head.

The heavy wooden handle hit the side of the man's skull and, with a grunt, Moe staggered to the side. Emma watched from her position on the floor as a group of councillors finally piled forwards onto him, tugging him to the ground. All the while he clutched at a cut on the side of his face, shouting in pain and in outrage.

As he fell the gun skidded towards Emma and, biting down against the wave of nausea that was clenching at her stomach, she reached out for it. Archie pinned Moe to the floor, the umbrella clamped across the back of his thick neck, as Emma struggled to push herself up into a sitting position. Sidney reached into the man's pocket, pulling out the second gun and sliding it across the tiled floor. It hit a small puddle of her blood on the way, smearing red across the stark white.

Moe looked around at her, watching her hands shaking as she pointed the gun towards him. They both knew that she wouldn't use it.

'Emma!' Sidney said as he finally came to her side, holding out a tissue to stem the flow of blood oozing from her nose. She batted it away.

'I'm fine,' she said through a wall of bruised muscles and broken bones. 'Where's my cell?'

He looked about him and then, after scrabbling about between two benches for a moment, reappeared with the small object clamped between his hands.

'Call Bill,' she said, leaning back against the nearby bench with the gun dangling over one knee. 'He's the lead officer of the back-up force. They'll all be outside. Tell them to come in and deal with him.'

'Okay,' Sidney said, standing up and finding the right number. As he called it he turned his back on Emma, leaving her alone on the floor. The rest of the room still stood around Moe, making sure that he was firmly pinned to the ground.

Several hot tears slipped down her cheeks as she listened to the phone conversation. Outside, over the sound of Moe's furious grunts, she could hear people jumping into action.

When she looked back up again, she realised that several people were watching her. They saw the pitiful tears that were streaking through the blood caking her face and they paused, biting at their lips. Emma froze, aching with humiliation. No one else approached her.

It was a blinding relief when she heard the trampling of footsteps tearing through the corridor, smashing through the glass of the locked doors in order to get into the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**_A/N:_**_ so can I PLEASE just thank everyone for their amazing responses to chapter 1?! Was not expecting that for buggery. Hence why I'm posting this chapter a tiny bit earlier than I originally intended :) hope you all enjoy! Please feel free to review with any feedback or suggestions that you may have so that I can steal all of your wonderful ideas and pass them off as my own..._

_Kisses,_

_starsthatburn xxx_

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Regina leaned back in her desk chair, crossing her hands over in her lap. Sidney twitched nervously in the seat opposite her, tiny beads of sweat pricking up across his forehead as he waited for her to speak.

'Can I get you a drink, Sidney?' Regina asked after a deliberately lengthy pause. The man blinked, wetting his lips.

'I'm good, thanks.'

'Are you sure?' she said, leaning forwards across the desk with her arms neatly folded. 'You look rather… dehydrated.'

'No, thank you.' Sidney swallowed before he asked, 'Regina… why am I here?'

Regina offered him a tiny, tight smile. 'I wanted to check that you're okay.'

'I'm… fine,' Sidney said, blinking. 'Thank you.'

'I'm glad,' she replied, her white teeth showing from between the purple slash of her lips. 'But, you know, Sidney: you really should try and talk about what happened. And if you need an ear – well. I'm right here.'

Sidney's gaze immediately narrowed, taking in the way that the mayor's smile didn't quite reach her eyes. 'You want me to tell you about the... meeting?'

'Of course,' she said, tilting her head to one side. 'Why would I not want to hear about that? You went through something traumatic, Sidney. I want to make sure that you're coping with it.'

'I've said that I'm fine,' he slowly replied.

'Yes,' the mayor said. 'But I still think that it would be healthy for you to get this off of your chest.'

'Regina, I—'

'Sidney,' Regina interrupted, her smile flickering for only a second. 'I'd like you to tell me what happened now. Please.'

Sidney recognised the tone of a woman who would not stop until she had heard what she needed to hear. Licking his lips, he leaned forwards and asked, 'You really don't know anything about it?'

'The police were fairly unhelpful in providing substantial detail,' she gritted out, leaning back in her chair once more. 'Apparently they don't think that the mayor needs to be kept informed when half of her town council are taken hostage.'

There was a pause. Regina narrowed her eyes, watching as Sidney shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

'It was your gardener,' he slowly offered. 'Moe someone? He owns Game of Thorns.'

'Yes, _thank you_, Sidney, but I am aware of that much – I was there to witness him being dragged out of the building in handcuffs.'

'You were there?' he asked, frowning in surprise. 'Then surely you must have _some_—'

'Continue,' she interrupted, her face perfectly still. As she spoke she forced herself to ignore the image that was attempting to flash up before her dark eyes – the same image of a blonde woman, her face streaked with blood as she was ushered into a waiting ambulance, that had been haunting her for the past two days.

Sidney swallowed. 'He… he was in the meeting, waiting for you. Emma told him to leave. And then… I don't know, Regina; the gun came out and everyone was on the floor, except for her. He threatened her. Constantly.'

'He hurt her,' Regina said in a low voice, leaning forwards. 'How badly?'

'You want some kind of measurement?' the man scoffed. '_Badly. _She's got a broken nose, for Christ sake, and from what I heard a few stitches as well. She stood up to him and he punished her for it. You surely know that – after all, _you're_ the one who decided to give her paid leave from the sheriff station until she's recovered.'

'Yes, Sidney, I know,' Regina snapped. 'It was also me who asked you to stand in as her replacement until she returns. Please don't make me regret that before you've even done your first shift.'

Sidney fell silent, his forehead creased. Regina took a deep breath, counting to five, before she allowed herself to speak again.

'The phone call,' she said slowly. 'What happened with the phone call?'

Sidney shuddered.

'He told her she had to call you. To get you down there,' he said. 'She'd told him that you were supposed to be at the meeting and obviously, when he realised that you weren't going to show, he had to come up with some other way to bring you into it. But… I don't know. She wouldn't do it.'

'At first,' Regina said.

'No,' Sidney said, closing his eyes as he, yet again, relived the moment when the gun had been turned on him. 'Not at first.'

Regina watched the colour draining from his face and bit at the inside of her mouth.

'And why did she refuse?'

'She said she wasn't going to drag you into that, despite what problems you two were having,' Sidney said, reopening his eyes.

'And that's when he turned the gun on you?'

'_Yes_.'

Regina swallowed. 'So she protected you.'

'She protected _everyone_,' Sidney snapped. 'Yourself included.'

'I wasn't _there_—'

'But you should have been,' the man responded, unflinching. 'And you know it. If you hadn't have pushed that meeting onto Emma, then God only knows what would have happened.'

Regina simply shrugged like this thought hadn't been bothering her for the past two days. 'Well. I suppose I would be dead.'

'Or not,' Sidney said in a flat voice. 'Miss Swan defended you when you weren't even in the room, Regina. I highly doubt that she would have simply stood by and let him kill you if she'd been there to witness it.'

The mayor's bottom lip trembled for just a moment, her nostrils flaring. Her editor watched her, sighing as her dark gaze finally fell back onto the desk.

'Regina,' he said slowly. 'Like it or not, Emma put her life on the line for everyone that day. Including you. And yet you still haven't been to see her.'

'I've been busy,' she snapped in response. The man raised an eyebrow.

'You've been feeling guilty, you mean.'

'I _hardly _think that—'

She was interrupted by the scrape of Sidney's chair as he abruptly stood up, gathering up his coat and bag.

'Madame Mayor,' he said, taking a step towards the door. 'You asked how I'm coping: and I'm fine. Truly. But the one person in this town who most certainly is _not_ is only a couple of streets away, and not matter how much you dislike her – you owe it to her to go and ask _her _that question.'

He swept out of the room in the most uncharacteristic manner possible. Regina was left alone behind her desk, running her tongue along the inside of her cheek, poking at a wound that she wasn't sure was even there.

The fact that she didn't like Miss Swan had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was the heavy, aching guilt that was still prodding insistently at her chest that had stopped her from going anywhere near her.

* * *

Henry picked at his dinner that night, resting his tensed jaw on one hand as he pushed mashed potato back and forth across the plate. Regina watched him, her own food sitting hardly touched before her.

'How was school today?' she eventually asked, her voice clattering through the silence of the dining room. Her son shrugged, not looking up.

After a few moments, she put her wine glass down with a sigh. 'Something's bothering you,' she said. 'Did something happen in class?'

'School was fine,' Henry said flatly, arranging his peas into a straight line across the centre of his plate.

'Then what is it?'

The silence that followed told Regina that she clearly wasn't going to like what he had to say next.

'Did you…' she swallowed, faltering. 'Did you go and see Emma today?'

Henry didn't respond. She took that as a yes.

'How is she?'

Finally, her son's hazel eyes flicked up to meet hers, that familiar crease resting between his eyebrows.

'You don't want to know how she is.'

'Yes, I do.'

'No you don't,' he rolled his eyes. 'You haven't even been to see her yet. You don't care how she is.'

'I…' the mayor paused, placing her hands in her lap. 'Henry. Please. Just tell me what happened.'

Her son slouched down in his chair, the anxious crease in his forehead deepening. A sigh finally escaped from between his lips.

'It was bad,' he mumbled. Regina waited for him to continue. 'She's really hurt and really quiet and she only let me stay for ten minutes before she told me that I should go. When I asked if I could come back again tomorrow, she said… she said that she needed time.'

Regina swallowed, shaking her head. 'Well. She has been through a lot, Henry. She's going to—'

'Now you're defending her?' Henry interrupted, his eyes flashing. 'Now that she doesn't want to see me anymore, you're on her side?'

'No,' Regina said. 'I'm on her side because she's in a lot of pain, and she probably doesn't want you to have to see her like that.'

Henry fell silent, staring down at the perfectly straight line of peas sat before him.

'Just be patient,' she said softly, trying to smile at him. 'She'll recover. And then things will go back to normal.'

'Things are never normal,' Henry mumbled. 'And you haven't seen her – you have _no_ idea how long it's going to take her to recover from this.'

Regina's voiced cracked when she finally managed to reply to him. '...you know that she won't want to see me, Henry.'

'She didn't want to see me either. But I still _tried_.'

* * *

When Regina knocked on the heavy wooden door, flakes of old paint came away on her knuckle. She wrinkled her nose, brushing them away with her left hand and then going to wipe them off on the inside of her coat when they stubbornly stayed exactly where they were. Then she heard the soft padding of footsteps on the other side of the door. She straightened herself up once more, thrusting her fists deep into the pockets of her coat.

Mary Margaret jumped in surprise when she opened the door and found her to be standing there. 'Mayor Mills?'

Regina swallowed, her whole body feeling strange: like her arms were too long for her sleeves and her tongue was too big for her mouth. She didn't care for it.

'Miss Blanchard,' she said coolly. 'I'm here to see Miss Swan. If you don't mind.'

The schoolteacher's hand crept up to rest just below the hollow of her throat, nervously fiddling with the silver necklace that hung there. 'Oh. Well, she's… she's not actually here, I'm afraid.'

Regina heard a creak of furniture from somewhere behind her. She pursed her lips impatiently.

'Miss Blanchard, I appreciate that your roommate is probably not in the best position to be receiving houseguests right now,' she said slowly. 'But there are some things that we need to discuss. She is my sheriff, after all.'

Mary Margaret nodded like she understood, then replied in the irritatingly soft voice that never failed to make the palms of Regina's hands itch. 'I'm really sorry, Regina. But I'm not sure that—'

'Mary Margaret,' a flat voice came from behind her. 'It's okay.'

The teacher immediately turned to her left, looking to where her roommate was obviously stood just behind the door. Regina leaned slightly to one side, trying to catch a glimpse of her. All she could see, however, was a white sleeve and a flash of blonde hair.

'Are you sure?' Mary Margaret murmured, throwing the mayor a cautious look. Regina fidgeted impatiently on the balls of her feet.

'Yeah,' Emma said, reaching out her hand to squeeze her roommate's arm. 'You were just leaving anyway, weren't you?'

The brunette blinked. 'I was?'

'Yes,' she said in a low voice. 'You were going to… the store. Remember? Go ahead. I'll be fine, I promise.'

Mary Margaret nodded, then dragged her eyes warningly back to the woman who was still waiting on the threshold. Taking hold of her coat and bag, the small woman slipped past the mayor with a shake of her head.

'I'll be back in half an hour,' she threw back over her shoulder, giving Regina one last reproachful look before she took to the stairs. Regina watched her go. When she turned back to the front door, she found Emma waiting for her.

For a moment, the mayor couldn't speak. The face before her belonged to Miss Swan, but it looked like a reflection in a smashed mirror: only traces of the Emma that she knew still flickered on the surface. The flesh on the left hand side of her face was raised and fiercely purple, bulging out from her temple and cheekbone like someone has stuffed glass marbles beneath her skin. That purple then bled into a dirty green colour beneath both of her eyes; the result of the broken nose that was centred in her face. Emma kept her eyes down on the floor as Regina stared at her, allowing her to take in every tiny, shattered detail, before she finally spoke.

'Do you want to come in?'

Snapping out of her confused haze, Regina nodded. 'Yes. Thank you.'

Emma stepped to one side, still not looking up, and let the mayor slide past her. The door was shut behind her with a dull thud.

'I'll just, um,' Emma said, motioning towards the kitchen, 'I'll make us some coffee. Feel free to sit. You know… wherever.'

Regina nodded, but remained standing in the centre of the apartment with her hands resting awkwardly in her pockets. She watched as Emma moved across the room: she didn't limp, but the way that her body was tilted carefully to one side told her that every single step was agony.

After a few minutes of silence, Emma shuffled back over and handed the mayor her coffee. Regina forced herself not to stare at the angry black stitches that ran down her temple like a set of train tracks.

'You can sit, Regina,' Emma repeated, moving back to the other side of the breakfast bar and leaning her whole body against it.

Regina looked down at the nearest rickety stool with a wrinkle of distaste running down the side of her nose. 'Aren't you going to…?' she asked.

'No,' Emma replied. 'Broken ribs. If I sit down, I won't be getting back up again for a while.'

Unsure of whether this was meant to be a joke or not, Regina simply nodded. She slowly walked over to the stool and sat herself down on it, her eyes all the while fixed on the suspiciously murky cup of coffee that Emma had pressed into her hand.

The silence wore on. Regina bit at the inside of her mouth, counting to ten and then to twenty, wondering why on earth she had thought this would be a good idea and what the hell she could _possibly _say now to make things even slightly less painful for either of them.

Emma watched her squirming in her seat for a full minute, those dark red lips pursing in and out, looking so uncomfortable that, under any other circumstances, it would have been funny. But rather than laugh, Emma was eventually forced to heave out a sigh.

'Regina…' she asked. 'Why are you here?'

Two darks eyes slowly dragged their way out of their coffee cup in order to look back at her. 'I came to check on how you are. You look… well.'

There was a pause before Emma snorted with derision. 'Wow. You _must _be after something.'

'Excuse me?'

'I look _well_?' Emma said, drawing air quotes around the final word. 'I look like Harvey Dent, Regina. If Harvey Dent had been run over by a truck. So, you must want something. What is it?'

Regina offered a tiny, confused smile. 'I don't… I'm not _after _anything, Miss Swan. I was simply worried about you. I wanted to make sure that you're okay.'

'I'm doing alright,' Emma said, taking a small sip of her coffee. Regina left hers untouched.

'I…' she said slowly, rolling a flake of paint between her thumb and forefinger. 'What happened, Miss Swan. With Moe. I feel that I should—'

'I don't want to talk about him,' Emma interrupted. Regina looked back up.

'Sorry?'

'Moe,' Emma said quietly. 'French. Whatever his name is. I don't want to talk about him.'

'I understand that,' Regina said, biting at the inside of her mouth. 'But I just wanted to explain—'

'Regina,' Emma warned, narrowing her already-swollen eyes. 'I mean it. What happened… it's done. I'm over it. I got hurt but I'll be okay and he's going to jail, and that's all there is to it.'

Regina blinked. 'No. No, it's not.'

'It is to me.'

As Regina watched Emma putting her mug back down on the counter, she saw that her hand was trembling slightly. The skin on her face that wasn't purple or green was almost grey; sickeningly pale and clammy with sweat, and whenever Emma's green eyes flickered up to meet Regina's dark ones, they faltered. She couldn't meet her gaze for longer than a second before she crawled back into her shell and forced herself to stare down at the wooden surface before her once more.

Regina leaned forwards, reaching out a hand to her. Emma automatically flinched.

'Emma,' the brunette said with a small frown. 'You're _not_ okay. I can assure you of that.'

'I'm fine. I've got a few weeks off of work to recover, anyway. I'll be alright.'

'I know,' Regina said, slowly pulling her hand back from its feeble, rejected gesture. 'I've got Sidney standing in for you while you're taking a break.'

Emma blinked. 'Well. That worked out pretty nicely for you then, didn't it?'

Rolling her eyes, Regina leaned forwards onto the counter. 'You think that I _want_ this? Give me some credit, Miss Swan, please. I'm not _that _heartless.'

Emma merely shrugged, turning back to the sink and placing her half-full mug beside it. 'If you say so.'

A long pause stretched out as Regina let those words clatter around inside her head. She waited for Emma to turn back to her before she replied.

'Miss Swan… are you angry at me?'

'Why? Am I not allowed to be?' she replied, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the counter.

Regina frowned. 'I don't understand – I'm here to try and explain things. But you won't let me. How can you be angry at me if—'

'Because I have _every right _to be angry, Regina!' Emma suddenly exploded, making the mayor jump in her seat. 'Look at me! _Look_! Do you have _any _idea what that man did to me? Yeah, I get it – the police told me all about him: he's got rage issues and he's still recovering from the death of his daughter and all of this other bullshit. He's psychotic and is getting locked up now – I _get _that. But the simple fact is that if you were capable of showing even the _slightest _degree of civility to any person at all in this godforsaken town, then this never would have happened. If you hadn't deliberately wound him up until he snapped then he wouldn't have taken a fucking gun and tried to bash my skull in. He wouldn't have threatened to kill us all just because you were too proud to pay him his goddamn wages.'

Regina blinked, shaking her head. 'He… I didn't… it's not my—'

'No, it's not your fault – but you still could have stopped it.' Emma sighed, covering her eyes with her hand for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet that it barely passed for a murmur. 'I stood up for you in there, Regina – he was planning on dragging you in there and killing you, and I did everything I could to stop that from happening. And I don't regret it – but you coming in here to try and explain away your guilt isn't going to get rid of these bruises or this fucking headache that Dr Whale said might not ever completely go away.'

Regina swallowed, looking down at the table with her hands clasped in her lap.

'You could have told Moe that I wasn't going to be there. At the meeting,' she said in a tiny voice. Emma's eyes widened in disbelief.

'Yeah, I _could _have done – and then what?! He would have left and come to find you and shot you dead in your own home? Is that preferable to you? The fact that I stood in between you two is what – _my _fault?'

'No,' Regina shook her head vehemently. 'No, of course it's not. You… stood up to him. You did something that few other people I know would have been brave enough to do, regardless of… regardless of who you were defending. And I'm grateful, sheriff. Truly.'

Emma sighed once more, looking back down at the floor. 'Sheriff,' she muttered. 'You can't even use my _name_.'

'Emma,' Regina responded.

The word was met with a sad, solemn groan.

'I need you to leave now, Regina,' the blonde woman said, her head falling so far forwards that Regina couldn't catch her expression.

'No – I haven't had a chance to explain anything yet.'

'There's nothing to explain,' Emma sighed. 'I did my job. I got hurt for it. And you're grateful. That's all there is to it.'

'No,' Regina spat out, rising to her feet. 'Please, Emma – let me try and explain. I want to—'

'Regina, _please_,' Emma bit out, lifting her head for just long enough that Regina could catch the glassiness of her swollen green eyes. 'I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm not feeling my best right now. Listening to you is a struggle, let alone talking to you. I just… I just need you to leave. You can explain yourself to anyone else who'll listen if that'll make you feel better about it. But right now, I just need you to go.'

The mayor took a step forwards, her mouth slightly open like she was planning on saying something else. Nothing came. Emma remained completely still, stood by the sink with her head hanging down over her chest and her eyes clamped shut. Regina took another step forwards and reached out to gently touch her arm; her last desperate attempt to get the blonde woman to listen to her. The moment that her fingers made contact with the sheriff's elbow, however, Emma's eyes snapped back open, her whole body rocketing to one side. As she flinched her half-full coffee cup toppled off of the counter and smashed onto the ground, murky brown liquid running through the cracks of Mary Margaret's floor.

Emma never looked down at it. Her eyes remained fixed on Regina; terrified and full of tears. Her chest heaved up and down as she struggled to catch her breath.

'Emma,' Regina stammered, looking down at her hand. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—'

'Please go,' Emma choked out, shaking her head. A single tear dribbled down her swollen cheek. '_Please_.'

And finally, Regina did. She almost ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her and staggering down the stairs. The picture of Emma Swan's bruised, petrified face remained burned across her memory. As she drove back home that startled scream followed her, no matter how many times she shook her head to try and get rid of it. Even as she arrived back at her house and locked herself in her study, still it was all that she could hear.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: **this chapter is a bit shorter than normal (more of a filler chapter than anything) so I decided to post it early to make up for it :) hope you all enjoy! x  
_

* * *

**Chapter Three**

'You look like crap, Emma.'

The sheriff raised her eyes from her hot chocolate, arching her unbruised eyebrow as sardonically as she could manage.

'Thanks so much,' she said as August slid into the booth opposite her. Other than the elderly couple who always seemed to be sat in the same spot by the window regardless of what time she arrived and Granny herself, Emma and the newest resident of Storybrooke were the only two people sat in the diner.

'It's barely seven o'clock,' August said, gesturing to the watery sunlight that was struggling to make its way through the restaurant's half-opened shutters. 'Why are you here so early?'

'I could ask you the same question,' Emma said dryly.

'Early riser,' August said with a crooked smile.

'And what makes you think that I'm not one?'

'Generally people who wake up at this time tend to look like they've actually been to sleep in the first place,' the man said, leaning forwards across the table. He was still smiling, as he always seemed to be, but it was strained. 'Have you slept at all?'

'Not recently,' Emma said, taking a sip of her cocoa. The taste of cinnamon inexplicably made her wince, but she forced it down.

'And, food?' August asked in a low voice. 'When was the last time that you ate something?'

'What are you, my father?' Emma asked, rolling her eyes. She leaned back in her chair as Granny approached the table with August's order, smiling wryly at the both of them.

'No,' August shrugged. 'I'm just concerned.'

'I'm fine,' Emma replied. Her automatic response to everything.

August observed her thoughtfully, taking in the marshy greyness beneath her eyes, before he spoke again.

'You don't have to do that, you know,' he said, holding his takeaway cup loosely between both of his hands. 'You're not okay. And no one's expecting you to be – I don't know if you're avoiding mirrors at the moment as well as sleep and all other forms of sustenance, but you look terrible. You can excuse me for being worried about you.'

'With all due respect, August,' Emma sighed, tugging a hand through her unwashed hair, 'I don't _know_ you. You only told me your name last week and, yes, I do know that you're still talking to my son at every possible opportunity. You're still suspicious. So, thanks for the concern – but I can do without it.'

'And yet,' August said, his lips quirking upwards once more, 'you're not telling me to go away.'

'I'm sorry, but I kind of thought that that was implied.'

He laughed coolly, shaking his head.

'Ah well, what can I say,' he said as he stood up to leave. 'I've never been very good at doing what I'm told anyway.'

Emma raised her chin to watch him go, her forehead creased.

'I get the impression that I'll be seeing you here again,' he said, rapping his knuckles on the table. 'Next time, I'm buying.'

Emma raised her eyebrows. 'I thought that you already took me out for a drink?'

'I did,' he said, his blue eyes flashing. 'But, sometimes, I do like to treat a girl to more than just free water from an old well.'

Emma laughed in spite of herself. August's face creased.

'I'll see you tomorrow, Emma,' he said, walking back through the diner and disappearing through the door that led to the hotel, not turning back to look at her as he went.

Just outside of the diner, Regina sat in her black mercedes watching them. She had decided to go into work two hours earlier than normal that Monday morning in an attempt to get some of her own paperwork under control: she knew that she would be spending the majority of her day at the sheriff station, standing over Sidney's shoulder and trying to fully gauge just how much of Emma's job he was actually going to be capable of doing. As she had driven past Granny's, however, she had caught sight of a flash of blonde through the window. Blonde that had been talking to suspicious, bearded brown.

She too watched as he left Emma alone at the table, her face a watercolour wash of green and grey in the sickly morning sunlight. She didn't turn to look out of the window, and so she didn't see the darkness that clouded the mayor's face. Glaring at August's leather-clad back, Regina tightly pursed her lips. _That's two people, then_, she thought. _Two people that he shouldn't be taking an interest in_.

* * *

'Emma,' Mary Margaret's voice drifted through the haze that was filling the blonde's head. 'You're not eating again.'

Emma blinked, looking up to where her roommate was watching her from across the table. 'Huh?'

'You haven't eaten anything.'

Emma glanced down at her plate: although the majority of food on it had been cut up and moved around a dozen times, it was still undeniably full. She sighed.

'Oh,' she said, reluctantly reaching for her fork. 'Right. Sorry – it's good. I guess I'm just… you know.'

'I know,' Mary Margaret said, quickly reaching across the table to squeeze Emma's hand. 'I get it, I promise you. But you need to try, Emma – you're never going to get better if you end up so weak that you pass out any time you try and walk down the stairs.'

Emma offered her roommate a tight smile, picking up a forkful of chicken and forcing it between her lips. It tasted like lead, and it dropped like a heavy weight in her stomach as if it were made of it too. Forcing herself not to grimace, Emma cut off another piece and braced herself for a second bite. The plate before her seemed endless; an interminable landscape that had defeated her before she had even started to wade through it.

Mary Margaret watched the anxious pulsing of the muscles in her jaw as she tried to psych herself up for the next mouthful, her shadowy green eyes creased with pain. Eventually the brunette found herself reaching out once more, pushing Emma's shaking hand back down to the table just as she went to force the fork back up to her lips.

'It's okay,' she said softly, taking the piece of metal out of her hand and removing the plate from under her nose. 'Don't force yourself. Let's try and find something else for you – does anything seem appealing right now? Do you want some ice cream?'

Emma let out a tiny snort of laughter, leaning back in her chair. 'I'm not six, Mary Margaret. And I haven't had my tonsils taken out.'

Her roommate stood up, carrying both of their plates across to the sink. 'I know. But it seemed as good a place as any to start. What do you fancy?'

'I fancy a drink,' Emma muttered, running a fingernail along one of the ridges in the table's dented surface.

'Emma,' Mary Margaret sighed. 'I'm not giving you alcohol – you haven't eaten more than a mouthful since Wednesday. One sip and I'd have to take you to the emergency room.'

'Good,' Emma said, closing her eyes. 'They might give me a sedative while I'm in there.'

'You won't need one if you've gone into an alcohol-induced coma,' Mary Margaret said sharply, piling the empty dishes into the sink before sticking her head into the fridge. 'I can make you some mac and cheese?'

'Mary Margaret. I'm okay. Really.'

'We have chocolate pudding. And leftover meatloaf.'

'I'm really not hungry.'

'Bacon?'

'Mary Margaret, please,' Emma said, her voice gradually getting smaller. She forced herself to turn around in her chair, one hand clasping hold of her ribs as she looked over at where her roommate was still surveying every cupboard and drawer that held any kind of food. The brunette had her back to her, but Emma could already sense the anxiety that was streaked across her round face. She heard a sigh.

'I don't know what to do.'

Heaving herself up from her chair, Emma approached her roommate with her bottom lip caught between her teeth. 'You don't have to _do _anything.'

'I have to look after you,' Mary Margaret said, her arms folded across her chest and her thumb unconsciously spinning her green ring around on her finger.

'No you—'

'Of course I do,' she said, turning to look at her roommate's face with an agonised expression. 'Emma. You're _broken_. And, honestly, sometimes I can't bare to watch you – you're still trying to convince me that everything's okay, but I'm not an _idiot_. You haven't smiled in days, you haven't slept in even longer, and any time there's a knock at the door or the phone rings or even a bird flies past the window, you jump so hard that you nearly break another rib. Of course I need to look after you – I just wish that you'd _let_ me.'

Emma stood silently for a moment, her arms hanging awkwardly by her sides. Mary Margaret's hazel eyes darted across her face, taking in each and every bruise for the umpteenth time as she waited for her to respond. She braced herself for an angry retort and the slamming of the front door.

What she got, however, was unexpected tears welling up in glassy, green eyes.

'I've…' Emma swallowed, looking down at her feet. 'I've never had anyone look after me before. It just… might take some getting used to.'

And then a pair of arms were around her, squeezing her as tightly as they could without hurting her even further. Emma closed her eyes, letting her hands slip around Mary Margaret's waist as she rested her chin against her warm shoulder.

'You'd better get used to it,' Mary Margaret murmured, smiling sadly into her blonde hair. 'I'm not going anywhere any time soon.'

* * *

Emma sat cross-legged in the centre of her bed, listening for any sounds coming from downstairs so as to check that Mary Margaret had definitely gone to bed. The apartment had been silent for almost twenty minutes before she finally crept over to her bedroom door, peering around the corner and down the stairs. The kitchen was dark. Emma pulled the sleeves of her thick jumper down over her hands, taking a nervous step out into the hallway with her breath held in her lungs.

She padded down the metal staircase, her feet silent in her thick socks. By the time that she had reached the wooden floor of the kitchen she could hear the soft snoring of her roommate from beyond the thin white curtain that shielded her bedroom. Emma slipped across the room towards it nonetheless, peering behind the fabric to see that Mary Margaret was fast asleep, curled up on her side with her hands clasped beneath her pillow. A tiny smile came over the blonde's face for just a second as she watched her wrinkling up her nose in her sleep.

Emma tiptoed back across the kitchen a few moments later, her breath catching at the back of her throat as she walked towards the front door. Reaching out for the handle, she found herself pausing. Her hand fell back to her side and she bit at her lip.

'Come on, Emma,' she muttered to herself, taking the deepest breath that her broken ribs would allow. She reached out once more, grabbed hold of the door handle, and pulled it towards her. She automatically closed her eyes.

When she forced them back open again, the space outside the door was empty. Just as it had been every night that week. A sigh of relief escaped from her trembling lips and she shut the door with a faint snap, turning the lock shut. She pulled on the handle once more to make sure that it was secure, and then she turned back to the rest of the apartment.

Beneath the kitchen table was her first stop, then the space behind the couch. She kept her breath held securely in her lungs the whole while, her sharp hearing waiting for a creak or a scrape from anywhere in the apartment other than below her own feet. Both of those places were clear and so she quickly moved onto the bathroom, checking behind the shower curtain and, quite inexplicably, in the tiny cupboard beneath the sink. Each place was empty. She returned to the full expanse of the apartment, stood in its centre with her hands tugging at the bottom of her sleeves, surveying it one last time. She forced herself to accept that it was definitely empty: she was safe.

And still she crept back up the stairs and checked under her own bed, in her wardrobe, behind the curtains. She tugged on the locked windows, gently at first and then more fiercely, feeling the old paint flaking off beneath her fingers. The window remained firmly shut and, finally, she let herself sit back on her bed, casting one last look around the room that up until that week had seemed far too small for her: now, suddenly, it was cavernous. Part of her longed for the tiny shoebox of a room that had been her home for the eleven months that she'd spent in prison.

Reaching for her nightstand, she picked up her gun and checked that it was fully loaded. She placed it back onto the wooden surface, easily within arms reach if she woke up needing it. Then she took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling her flinty ribs creaking around the walls of her lungs, before she finally forced herself to turn the light off. The shadows grew, their eyes watching her. Emma slipped her body beneath the sheets, huddling up with only her eyes and forehead visible over the top. The silence of the apartment cackled at her.

The digital clock on her nightstand read 1:03am. For the next five hours she laid in the same spot, motionless, and watched the minutes as they walked away from her. Her chest hurt slightly less with every millimetre of watery sunlight that began to creep its way over the horizon.

When Mary Margaret got up for school at half past six, the front door was unlocked and Emma's bed was empty. Across town, her roommate sat at her now regular table in Granny's, her eyes swollen and sleepless, with a hot chocolate that she couldn't bring herself to drink clasped between her fingers.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: **for those who haven't heard it, an outstanding SQ song to listen to while grinding teeth over this chapter and also undoubtedly crying over the sneak peek that they released today is 'The Author' by Karima Francis. Fucking gorgeous, seriously. Go have a listen.  
_

_Hope you enjoy the chapter! Please throw me some thoughts if you have any._

_starsthatburn x_

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Regina locked up her office and made her way back to her car, her left arm clamped around the stack of paperwork that needed looking over that evening. The majority of the papers had been confiscated from Sidney earlier that afternoon: as expected, his first week as Storybrooke's stand-in sheriff had not gone smoothly. Even answering the phone seemed to be a challenge to the man who had spent most of his life up until that point working alone; hiding behind trees and hiding behind his computer. Regina had taken one step into the sheriff station on Monday morning, seen the terrified expression on Sidney's face teamed with the teetering stack of incident reports and witness reports that Moe's little adventure with a gun had produced, and had only been able to groan to herself. She had ended up spending most of the week there, growing increasingly irritated as Sidney had stammered out question after question. The papers had eventually gone back with her to her office simply because she knew that she'd end up beating him to death with them if she'd watched him filling them out with blue ink, rather than the black that they _clearly_ specified, one more time.

The streets surrounding City Hall were quiet as she left, a fact that, since the previous week's events, now made her feel grossly uncomfortable. She flicked her sharp eyes across the car park before she slid into the driver's seat, locking the doors behind her. Pulling out onto Main Street, her black car was the only one to roll slowly between the rows of shops. Regina blinked down at her clock – it was barely six o'clock. Where on earth was everyone?

A moment later a car pulled out in front of her, its bright headlights momentarily distracting her from where she was going. She instantly recognised it as Mary Margaret's grotesque little vehicle. The mayor gently pressed on her brakes, watching as the brown car picked up speed and drew away from her. At the end of the road, it followed the fork to the right: the track that led to the toll bridge. Regina rolled her eyes, cursing the woman's rotten name under her breath – did she really have no shame whatsoever? She shook her head to herself. It was clear to her then that her already rock-bottom opinion of the woman quickly needed reassessing.

Speeding her car up, Regina arrived home a few minutes later to see that the light was on in Henry's bedroom. She dragged the stack of papers off of the passenger seat of the car and slipped inside the house, kicking off her heels and leaving them neatly lined up next to the front door.

'Henry?' she called upstairs. 'I'm home. Do you want to come down and help me with dinner?'

She received no response. Sighing, the mayor placed the paperwork and her handbag on the nearest table and took to the stairs.

'Henry?' she said as she reached his bedroom door, knocking gently. She pushed it open a moment later when there was no reply.

She frowned when she found her son sat cross-legged on his bed, staring blankly down at his book. It was closed.

'Did you hear me?' she said, taking a step into the room. He looked up at her with heavily hooded eyes, shrugging. Regina sighed, taking a seat on the edge of his bed. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing.'

'It doesn't look like nothing,' she said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. He didn't pull away, but he didn't squeeze back either. 'How was school?'

'Fine.'

'And after school?'

'Fine.'

'Where did you go?'

'I didn't go anywhere.'

'But you're upset.' Regina narrowed her eyes, forcing out a breath. 'You can tell me if you went to see Emma again, Henry. I won't mind.'

He looked back up at her with eyes that were full of tears, and before she knew it he had catapulted himself across the bed towards her. She blinked with surprise for barely half a second before she gathered her son up in her arms, feeling him shuddering against her chest.

'Oh, sweetheart,' she muttered, planting a kiss on the top of his head. 'What happened?'

He shook his head vigorously, swallowing down tears. 'I don't want to tell you.'

'Why not?'

'You'll get angry at her.'

'What?' she asked sharply, pulling away from him so that she could look him in the eye. He flinched. 'Henry – what happened? Why would I be angry?'

'You were angry when you came back from seeing her,' he mumbled, scrubbing his hand beneath his eyes. Regina sighed, pushing his hair back from his forehead.

'That was different,' she said softly, swallowing. 'I was… I was upset. I wasn't angry.'

Henry blinked, watching her questioningly. 'Upset? Why?'

'It doesn't matter,' she said quickly, trying to smile down at him. 'What matters is why _you're _upset, Henry. Please tell me.'

The boy bit at his bottom lip, his forehead creasing in the same way that his mother's would whenever she was thinking. When he realised that there was no hidden agenda in Regina's own face, just concern, he sighed.

'She was worse.'

'Worse?' Regina asked slowly, narrowing her eyes. 'How could she be worse?'

'I don't know,' Henry said quietly, leaning back on his hands. 'But she was. She and Miss Blanchard had been arguing when I got there, I think: Mary Margaret looked like she'd been crying, and Emma was angry and was slamming doors all around the apartment. And she looked worse as well. I don't think she's slept.'

'I don't think so either,' Regina said, thinking about how she'd seen her sat in Granny's yet again on her way to work that morning, her head rested in her hands. 'How long did you stay for?'

'Not very long,' Henry said, wiping away what remained of his frustrated tears. 'They didn't want me there. Emma said that they would spend the night talking, and then she'd hopefully be able to see me tomorrow.'

Regina opened her mouth to respond, and then the thought finally struck her: she'd seen Mary Margaret going to meet David. Not much talking was going to get done that evening after all, it seemed. Miss Swan was going to be alone.

Unsure as to whether she should be furious or deeply concerned, Regina ran her hand over her son's wet cheek and offered him a reassuring smile. 'I'm sure she'll do her best,' she said, rubbing her thumb in a slow circle across his skin. 'She's trying, Henry. She just needs time, and patience. She needs you to understand that. Can you do it, do you think?'

'Of course I can,' Henry nodded vigorously, forcing a smile. 'I just… I wanted her to know that I'm still _here_.'

'She knows,' Regina said quickly. 'Trust me – she knows.'

They sat like that for a few more seconds, Henry's face resting against Regina's cupped palm. A sharp pain beat through her chest as she looked down at him: there was no hatred there. No resentment. For the first time in weeks, or possibly even months, her son had simply let her in. She smiled weakly, a dangerous lump rising in her throat.

And then the worry returned to her – a vile, irritating worry over someone that she didn't even want to be thinking about. She sighed.

'Henry,' she said slowly, crossing her legs over. 'After dinner… will you be okay on your own for a little bit?'

The boy blinked curiously. 'Yeah, of course. Why?'

'I need to go out.'

'Where are you going?'

Hating the taste of the words as they rolled around in her mouth, Regina grimaced. 'I think that I should go and check that Miss Swan's okay.'

* * *

She could hear the music from the bottom of the stairwell. The heavy, crashing drumbeat of some god-awful rock music poured down the stairs, and when she tentatively placed her hand on the wooden railing so as to walk up to the loft apartment, she could feel it vibrating beneath her fingers. She groaned to herself: evidently leaving Miss Swan alone was like leaving a teenager unattended for the evening. The apartment would no doubt be in ruins by the time that Mary Margaret returned home.

The worry that was still knotted in her stomach forced her to keep climbing the stairs, however. She'd seen Emma that morning and, even from the distance of her car, Regina could see that she wasn't well. Regardless of what she and her roommate had been arguing about later that afternoon, she should not have been left on her own. Not in her condition. Certainly not for David Nolan.

Regina approached the front door with her breath caught in her lungs, quickly realising that no matter how loudly she knocked it was unlikely that Emma would be able to hear her. The music was almost deafening here, even through the heavy wooden door, and Regina had to wonder whether maybe Emma had passed out somewhere where she couldn't hear it anymore. She swallowed, then pounded her fist against the door regardless. She wasn't surprised when after a few minutes no one had answered.

Reaching into the pocket of her coat Regina pulled out the skeleton key that she'd suspected she might be needing, slipping it into the lock and easing the door open. The blast of the drums thudded against her temples. Narrowing her eyes, she stuck her head around the door and peered into the room. For a moment she saw nothing unusual, other than the enormous stereo sat on top of the kitchen counter that she suspected probably didn't belong to Mary Margaret.

Then she looked down at the floor, and she saw the half-empty bottle of whiskey. She saw Emma's feet sticking out from behind the counter.

Without thinking Regina entered the room and hurled herself over to the kitchen, her heart clenched like a fist inside her chest. _Oh God_, she thought to herself, _she's probably dead. She's killed herself. And I'll find her and everyone will no doubt blame me and then what the hell will I tell Henry? How can I _possibly_ explain to him—_

And then she stopped, looking down at the floor. With her back leant against the kitchen counter, Emma was sat on the floor with a glass clutched in her left hand. In her right was a bunch of photographs. Spread on the floor all around her were more of them, all of them old and tatty and most of them ripped in some way, sat next to a box that had a yellow blanket folded neatly on top of it.

Regina nearly screamed. Slamming her hand down on top of the stereo, she shut the music off and watched with considerable satisfaction as Emma jumped in her seat.

'What the hell—'

'I thought that you'd _died_,' Regina spat out, her clenched fists visibly trembling by her sides. 'What in _God's name _are you doing, Miss Swan?'

Emma looked up at her through bleary, bloodshot eyes. The bruises that were strewn across her face didn't seem to have faded since she'd last seen her – if anything, they now only seemed to stand out more against the miserable white sheet that was the rest of her skin.

'I don't…' she mumbled, looking down at the photograph in her hand. 'I'm not sure… I…'

Regina blinked, realising that the photograph that she was looking at was a picture of Emma herself. She looked young – probably only barely a teenager – and fiercely skinny, but other than that she somehow looked exactly the same as the woman who was curled up before her.

The woman who, Regina was quickly realising, was blind drunk.

'Oh, for God's sake,' the mayor muttered, crouching down beside her and prising the glass out of her fingers. 'How much of this have you had?'

'I don't know,' Emma mumbled, shutting her eyes. A tear leaked out from beneath her clumped eyelashes.

'You can't have eaten in days,' Regina said. The last time that she'd seen Emma she'd been wearing a long-sleeved shirt: now, she was back in her grubby old white tank top. The arms that protruded from beneath it were pale and thin, peppered with bruises like islands on a treasure map. From beneath its fabric Regina could easily see the dark, inky patch that no doubt acted as the X on top of her broken ribs. 'Emma? How much did you drink?'

'Not much,' Emma said, shaking her head. 'It just… it sort of, hit me.'

'Alcohol can do that when you're emaciated,' Regina bit out, screwing the top back onto the bottle and placing it out of her reach.

Emma's head fell forwards, her shoulders shaking with a barely concealed sigh. It was the most pathetic sight that Regina had ever seen in her life.

She reached out to touch Emma's arm. 'Look. Miss Swan—'

The second that her fingers made contact with the pale, scarred skin Emma flinched, nearly falling sideways in the process. She quickly drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, without daring to look up at the woman kneeling beside her.

'Emma,' Regina said in a low voice, rolling her eyes at her own ineptitude before reaching out again, slower this time. When her fingers touch Emma's elbow the blonde woman still winced, but less violently. Her green eyes opened, staring down at the unfamiliar contact that was seemingly taking place against a body that didn't feel like her own anymore. 'Emma, why are you on your own?'

'I don't need a babysitter,' the sheriff muttered. 'You said it yourself, remember? I'm a _grown up_ now. Grown ups take care of themselves.'

Regina opened her mouth to respond, and then her gaze was caught by the spread of photos next to Emma's leg. Endless photos of Emma; where she was young and angry and always, always alone.

'Miss Swan…'

'The problem is, though,' Emma said, her words dribbling out of her like warm beer, 'that I'm tired of taking care of myself. I've always taken care of myself. And it gets old really, really fast.'

Regina swallowed, realising that her fingers were still on the sheriff's arm. She pulled them away like her skin had burnt her.

She quickly stood up, and Emma somehow couldn't stop the crumpled disappointment that tore through her face. Glancing upwards, she waited for the mayor to turn and leave her. Instead Regina paused for a moment, and then she reached her hand back out again to the woman who was still curled up against the kitchen counter. Emma shook her head.

'Just go away.'

'I am not leaving you down here to wallow in self-pity all night. Now get up.'

'_Please_ go away?'

'Miss Swan, I promise you that I'm stronger than I look: if you think that I won't drag you up every single one of those stairs then you will find yourself _sorely_ mistaken.'

Emma groaned, her head suddenly thudding back against the cabinet door. Her green eyes had clamped shut once more, but the skin below them was slick with tears. Not for the first time that week Regina felt a sharp jolt of guilt hitting her in the stomach, spasming through every muscle in her body until she thought she might be sick. The feeling made her skin crawl.

Kneeling down once more, she took Emma's hands in her own and slowly stood back up again.

'I'm going to pull you up now, Miss Swan,' she said warningly. 'You might want to cooperate: this is going to hurt more than enough without you struggling against it.'

'Regina, don't—'

Ignoring her, Regina began to pull on her arms as gently as she could. Emma gasped as pain shot through her ribs, feeling like a sharp blade was suddenly sawing through every bone and muscle and nerve that it could reach. Regina didn't let go. She hoisted the blonde woman as high off of the ground as she could manage before quickly slipping Emma's arm over her shoulder, heaving her entire weight up against her body until she was finally standing.

'Oh God,' Emma muttered, swaying slightly. Regina clamped her against her side, gritting her teeth.

'No, no,' she hissed. 'No falling. And definitely no vomiting. We're getting you up those stairs if it kills me.'

'_I'm _going to kill you,' Emma groaned, pressing her hand against her face and then suddenly hissing in pain as she pushed against her stitches more heavily than she'd intended. '_Shit._ Oh, God…'

Regina turned to look at her and, in that split second, watched as her pale face visibly crumpled. The tears had started spilling down her cheeks faster than she could register.

'Come on, Emma,' she said as patiently as she could manage, beginning to walk her across the kitchen. She felt the sheriff's arm squeeze more tightly around her neck, trying desperately to stay upright.

It was a slow, laborious process. After every stair that they climbed Emma had to stop, scrubbing at the tears on her face with one shaking hand. Regina could feel her teeth beginning to ache with annoyance, looking up at how far they still had to travel and with every ounce of her being wanting to simply leave the woman exactly where she was and go home. She didn't need this – she didn't _owe_ her anything. Henry was at home by himself and Mary Margaret would surely be back soon: she was the one who could deal with the problem that she'd no doubt caused herself when she returned.

And yet the mayor only held the sheriff more tightly to her side, muttering fierce encouragement in her ear.

'You can do this, Emma,' she said as they reached the second step from the top. 'We're nearly there now.'

'Shut up,' Emma muttered in response, her eyes yet again closed. But she heaved herself up onto the next step nonetheless, her teeth gritted tightly together as her head and her ribs continued to burn like wildfire.

'I'll shut up when I get you into that damn bed,' Regina said, pausing as Emma began taking deep, stilted breaths through her nose. 'And not a moment before.'

'You're so _annoying_,' Emma groaned, shaking her head and finally lifting her left foot onto the firm ground of the upstairs landing. 'You'll never shut up.'

'That's certainly rich coming from you, sheriff,' Regina replied, allowing the blonde to press the majority of her weight against her so that she could finally heave the rest of her body onto the wooden floor of the hallway.

'You see?' Emma said, leaning against her, inwardly begging the floor to stop tilting beneath her feet. 'You just can't help yourself.'

Regina forced out a tiny snort of laughter, then hefted Emma's weight back onto the shoulder that had been screaming with the effort since the very first stair that they had climbed. Carrying Sidney's papers back into the office tomorrow morning would certainly be a challenging start to her day.

The door to Emma's bedroom was open, and Regina managed to shunt her into the room comparatively easily. They reached the bed together and Emma went to flop down onto it without thinking – Regina somehow managed to catch her before she did, grinding her teeth with the effort.

'Carefully,' she hissed, lowering her down slowly onto her unbroken right side. 'For goodness sake, Miss Swan, do you _ever _use your brain?'

Emma didn't respond. Her knees had automatically curled up against her chest despite the restrictive tightness of her jeans and her eyes had closed, one of her fists pressed up against her mouth. Regina frowned, wondering if she had fallen asleep already. Then she saw the sticky tears that were still leaking out from beneath her closed eyelids and the slight shaking of her shoulders against the pillows. She inwardly groaned, then sat down on the very edge of the bed.

When she placed her hand on Emma's shoulder, she didn't jump.

'Are you okay?' she asked in a low voice. Quite indiscernibly, Emma shook her head.

'No.' The single word was heavy with tears, like Emma was drowning beneath its weight. 'I'm not.'

'Is that the first time that you've admitted that?'

'I thought you were going to stop talking once you got me up here?'

Regina couldn't help but smirk to herself: even now, drunk and miserable and clearly in pain, Miss Swan managed to be just as pigheadedly hostile as ever.

'I lied,' she said simply, beginning to rub a small circle against the skin of her shoulder. It was a tiny, pathetic gesture, but one that she had used so many times with Henry as he had grown up. Whether he was feverish or upset or just simply tired, it had always calmed him down. She thought about that very evening and the tiny circle that she'd brushed against the hot skin of his cheek, and the small smile that he'd offered her in return.

Something sharp caught against her throat, and she automatically pulled away from the woman lying beside her.

'No surprises there,' Emma muttered in response, but it was clear that there was no malice in it. She sounded exhausted.

Suddenly she groaned, reaching up to press a hand over her eyes. 'Jesus Christ. I feel like I'm on a fucking carousel.'

Regina sighed, pursing her lips together. Slowly, she reached down for the sheriff's leg.

'Put your foot on the floor,' she said, lifting it up on her behalf and pushing the ball of her foot against the wooden floorboards. 'It'll ground you. That should help.'

'How the hell would you know something like that?' Emma asked, trying to look over her shoulder and failing. Regina swallowed, thinking back to the first night that Emma Swan had spent in Storybrooke: the night when Henry had run away, the night when he had returned with his birth mother, the night when she had shut herself away in her office and drank scotch until her teeth had gone numb.

After a pause she replied quietly, 'I just do.'

As she sat, Regina found her eyes being drawn to the stitches that were still running down Emma's temple; their black lines fiercely marking possession of the damaged, dented skin there. The swelling of her cheekbone had barely gone down, she noticed. The mayor bit her lip, noticing for the first time just how small Emma actually was: physically, of course, she was taller than the mayor. But beneath her at that moment it was painfully apparent just how tiny and how damaged she actually was.

_And that's your fault, you know._ The thought entered Regina's head before she could stop it. She blinked.

It was _her_ curse that had caused Emma to grow up alone; _her_ behaviour that had caused her to have her head beaten in and her sharp, bare bravado to be completely torn from her. It was her who had labelled Miss Swan as a liability and as a threat. The woman lying beside her didn't seem to be the same as the one that she'd painted a dangerous picture of in her head: all she could see was the same little girl who was in the photos downstairs; one who had never learned to trust anyone because she'd never had any reason to. One who got attacked by life at every single turn.

Regina closed her eyes for a moment, sighing.

'I'm sorry for what happened, Emma.'

She said it quietly, and for a moment she wasn't sure whether the blonde had heard her. Then she heard a sniff, and Emma turned her cheek to look up at her.

'I know,' she murmured, her head quickly flopping back down again. 'It's okay.'

'No it's not.'

'Well, no,' Emma admitted, rubbing her fist beneath her eyes once more. 'Not okay, exactly. But it will be. I just need a bit of time to get over it.'

Her words were still slurred, although Regina was struggling to deduce whether it was from the whiskey or just from plain exhaustion. Her eyes were shut once more, but she didn't seem anywhere closer to falling asleep just yet.

Regina swallowed before she asked, 'Why were you alone when I came round, Miss Swan?'

Emma wrinkled her nose, ignoring the pain that pulsed through it. 'Because Mary Margaret went out.'

'I realise that,' Regina rolled her eyes. 'But you said to Henry that you two were going to talk about it tonight.'

'About what?'

'The arguing.'

'Oh,' Emma said flatly, pausing. 'Damn. He really is a smart kid.'

'What were you fighting about?'

Emma opened her mouth to respond – to tell Regina that she had told Mary Margaret not to go and meet David. Not because she had wanted her to stay at home with her, but simply because she was sick of the whole thing and because she thought that her roommate was being an idiot. It was a statement that Mary Margaret, exhausted after yet another hour of trying desperately to get her to eat something, had not appreciated.

The warm haze of whiskey that filled her head nearly let all of this slip off of her tongue. At the last minute, however, she remembered who she was talking to – Regina was friends with Kathryn. And she was certain that Regina didn't know about the affair – she couldn't. She would have done something about it by now.

'Nothing,' she eventually muttered. Regina frowned. 'Just… nothing important.'

A silence followed as Regina mulled this over, trying to decide what Miss Swan could be hiding from her this time. Then Emma spoke again, her voice cracking.

'My head hurts, Regina,' she mumbled.

'Do you want me to leave?'

'No,' Emma replied without thinking. Regina wavered for a moment before she reached her hand back out again, wanting to rest it against the back of Emma's blonde head so that it could rub its tentative, comforting circle there instead. Then at the last second she pulled back, clamping her fists between her knees.

Emma suddenly choked out a sob, an agonised murmur erupting from her throat.

'No one _gets _it.'

Regina frowned at the abrupt admission, watching Emma as she clenched and unclenched her fists against the sheets.

'Gets what, Miss Swan?' she asked slowly.

'What it's like,' Emma said, sniffing. She suddenly buried her face into the pillow and Regina found herself leaning forwards, trying to catch what she said next. 'What it's like to be so _fucking _lonely, _all _the goddamn time. Even when you're surrounded by people. Like… like, even when I'm sat with Mary Margaret or Henry or August or anyone, I just feel like I'm stood in a room full of people who are all laughing at some joke that I'm not in on and so I just have to chuckle along like an idiot, but all the time I feel like what they're all actually laughing at is… is me. It's like the fucking lights are always turned off around me, and I can never find the light switch. And people will always be there as fast as they can, rolling their eyes, saying, 'God, Emma, just turn the lights back on, will you? What's the big fucking deal?' But I can't _find _the light switch, Regina. I don't _have_ a light switch. I'm always scrabbling about in the dark and I'm always confused and always on my own. I've never had a light switch. And no one fucking gets that.'

Regina could only blink. She had no idea what to say to something as bluntly, cruelly honest as that.

The silence bore on, and eventually Emma's pathetic hiccups subsided into sniffles: after five days of seemingly no rest whatsoever, she slipped into a shaky, fitful sleep with one of her legs hanging off of the bed. Regina stayed by her side for the next few minutes, watching the tears as they dried on her cheeks. Finally she heaved herself back to her feet, her shoulder still aching, and made her way back to the door. Leaving it ajar, she snapped the lights off and went back downstairs without looking behind her.

She realised as she reached the wooden floor of the kitchen just what a mess Miss Swan had managed to leave behind her: besides the carpet of tattered photos that filled the space between the breakfast bar and the rest of the room, there were sporadic puddles of whiskey splashed all across the floor. The bottle that Regina had confiscated was sticky and had already left a faint amber ring on Mary Margaret's counter. Part of Regina wanted desperately to leave everything exactly as it was – it would serve the schoolteacher right if she came back and had to spend the next ten minutes scrubbing the stains out of her kitchen. But another part of her – the anally retentive part or the part of her that for some reason gave a damn about what Emma had to face in the morning, she couldn't tell – forced her to stop in her tracks and clean it up before the blonde's roommate got home.

Gritting her teeth, she hunted down a dishcloth and began to wipe up every inch of the mess that the drunk sheriff had managed to leave behind her. She then started on collecting up the photos, picking up the box with the blanket in it and placing the whole lot on top of the counter.

Just as she was putting the photos away, however, the one on the top of the pile caught her eye. She separated it from the rest of the stack: Emma couldn't have been more than six in it, her skinny legs sticking out from the bottom of a pair of ill-fitting boy's shorts. She was wearing a pink top that didn't suit her even then and her blonde hair was about three shades lighter than it was now – but she inexplicably looked exactly the same. The same fierceness hung about the angles of her face, as well as something else: something in her eyes that closely resembled fear.

'Mayor Mills?'

Regina violently jumped, her heart clunking to a halt in her chest. She looked up to find Mary Margaret stood in the open doorway, her forehead creased into a frown. The mayor noticed with considerable distain how flustered her hair was, and how the buttons on her cardigan were all done up wrong.

'Miss Blanchard,' she said, swallowing. 'I'm sorry. I was just… tidying.'

Mary Margaret's eyes immediately narrowed, taking in the bottle of whiskey and the box of Emma's possessions that were sat in front of her. 'Tidying.'

Regina rolled her eyes to herself, thrusting her hands deep into her pockets. 'Yes. I thought that it might be a nice thing to do, to save you from having to do it yourself when you got home from… wherever you've been.'

She forced herself not to smirk as she watched the fierce blush spreading through Mary Margaret's cheeks.

'Regina, why are you here?' she quickly asked, taking a small step into the apartment. Then she looked about her. 'Where's Emma?'

'Upstairs,' she replied as coolly as she could manage.

'She's asleep?'

'In a sense.'

Mary Margaret's eyes drifted back to the half-empty bottle on the counter and immediately widened in outrage. 'You gave her alcohol?!'

Regina let out a despaired groan. 'Yes, Miss Blanchard, that's _exactly _what I did – I waited for you to leave, and then I snuck around here with the cunning plan of giving a fully grown woman a bottle of whiskey in the hopes that she would pass out in her bed. Then I _cleverly_ planned to clean her kitchen. _That _is why I am here.'

Her sarcasm somehow seemed to roll cleanly off of the school teacher's back, however. Her hazel eyes softened as she examined Regina's pursed lips, her tired eyes, her messy hair.

'You came round because of Henry,' she said slowly, clutching hold of her necklace with one hand. 'You were _worried _about her?'

The muscles in Regina's jaw clenched, and suddenly she realised that she was far too tired to deal with either of the women in that apartment. She straightened her back beneath her coat.

'I'm leaving now, Miss Blanchard. Good night.'

She stormed past her and moved towards the open door, all too prepared to slam it behind her and never come back. As she reached the threshold, however, something stopped her in her tracks. With one hand on the door handle she found herself turning back again, sighing to herself. Mary Margaret still had her eyes on her, waiting for her to speak.

'She's in a bad way, Miss Blanchard,' she said in a flat voice. 'She needs someone to look after her.'

Mary Margaret blinked, her mouth opening and closing several times before she managed to respond. 'I… I know. I just…'

'Good night, Miss Blanchard,' Regina repeated, turning away once more and shutting the door behind her. Quietly.

She drove the whole way home in silence. It was barely ten o'clock, and yet she felt exhausted, like she'd spent the entire night by Emma Swan's side. Her body slumped down in her seat, her aching arms struggling to hang onto the steering wheel. When she arrived back at home, Henry's bedroom light was off.

It wasn't until she was back inside the house, trying to shrug her coat off, that she realised that the photo of Emma had found its way into her pocket. She pulled it out, peering down at it in the dim light of the hallway. The sadness in the small girl's eyes was unignorable, even then.

Going into her study, she went to throw the photograph in the trash. Instead, she opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pushed it to the bottom. The drawer was quickly locked, and finally she went upstairs.

She stopped off in Henry's room to kiss him goodnight. He was lying beneath his covers, curled up in the exact same position that she had left his mother in half an hour before. She pressed a kiss onto his hair, but he didn't stir. Sitting down on the edge of his bed, she placed her hand on top of his and began to rub a tiny, gentle circle against his skin, all the while looking down at him with heavy, sad eyes and a heavy, sad heart.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: **HELLO MY GLORIOUS SWAN QUEENERS, I do hope you all survived the finale! I've been curled up in a ball of tears and snot for most of today so the fact that I actually remembered to put this chapter up is nothing short of a miracle. It's another shorter one, I'm afraid - I'm trying to build up the story, please don't hate me! I'll try to post chapter 6 very soon :)_

_Also if anyone wants to have a screaming fangirling coversation about the season finale (because I, for one, LOVED THE ARSE OFF OF IT) then please leave me a message on tumblr! We'll have tea and we'll cry together. I'm **starsthatburn **over there too._

_Hugs and snogs,_

_starsthatburn xxx_

* * *

**Chapter Five**

'I know that you've been blaming your mom for all of this, Henry,' August said, slowly stirring his spoon through his cup of black coffee. 'But, honestly, I don't actually think that Regina can be held responsible for most of what has happened. Things are more complicated than that.'

The boy plucked a marshmallow from the top of his cocoa, sighing. When he looked back up at the man sat before him, his hazel eyes held a confused mixture of reluctance and relief.

'I know.'

August frowned. 'You do?'

'Yeah,' Henry offered him a tiny smile. 'I was angry at her at first: she wouldn't tell me what had happened with Emma and with that man, but when I saw him on the news I recognised him from our garden. And then she wouldn't go and see Emma, even though when she came back home from City Hall that day she locked herself in her office and cried for an hour. I was angry at her because she was pretending not to care, and that was kinda worse than her actually not caring at all. But… I know it's not really her fault. She feels really bad and she _did _go and see Emma eventually, even if it didn't go very well.'

'When was that?' August asked, casually sipping his coffee.

'Saturday, I think,' Henry's forehead crinkled. 'And then last night.'

The man blinked. 'She went again?'

'She said that she was worried about her.'

'And how did it go?'

'I don't know,' Henry shrugged. 'I fell asleep before she got home. And then when I woke up this morning she went off to work early again, so I couldn't ask her.'

'Ah,' August smiled. 'I was wondering how you managed to get her to agree to let you see me.'

'She doesn't need to know,' Henry grinned, draining half of his mug in one go. 'I don't think she trusts you very much.'

'And so she shouldn't,' August said with an odd twinkle in his eye. 'I am certainly not one to be trusted.'

Henry laughed, finishing off his cocoa before he looped the straps of his backpack onto his shoulders. 'I need to get to school now, anyway. Do you want to walk me to the bus stop?'

August's blue eyes flicked over to the clock behind the diner's counter: it was getting close to half past eight.

'Can't, kiddo,' he replied with a regretful shrug. 'Prior engagement.'

'Okay,' Henry smiled, leaping up from his seat. 'Thanks for the cocoa, August. I'll see you around.'

'See you, buddy,' he said, leaning back in the booth with his arm hooked over the leather seat. He watched the boy scuttling out of the door, his enormous backpack weighing him down as he walked to the bus stop alone.

For the next ten minutes August watched the clock, his eyes growing narrower and his brow furrowing with concern. And then finally the door chimed open, a familiar mess of blonde hair and red leather darting in from the street.

'I was beginning to worry about you,' he said as Emma slipped into the seat opposite him, gesturing to Granny to bring over her usual drink.

'Not necessary,' Emma said, not looking up to meet his gaze. 'Have you been here all morning?'

'I've been kept busy.'

'You should really get a job,' Emma rolled her eyes, shrugging off her jacket. August took that moment to scan her face, taking in the now familiar, ugly bruises and the murky circles beneath her eyes. He quickly noticed that something was different, however: the pinkness of her eyes had subsided slightly. She wasn't stifling her usual, aching yawns.

'Have you _slept_?' he asked with interest, leaning forwards across the table. Emma's eyes flicked up to meet his for just a moment, watching as curiosity and something that closely resembled relief swept across his face. She shrugged.

'In a sense.'

'...how's that? You've either slept or you haven't.'

Emma paused, nodding to thank Granny as she brought over her hot chocolate with cinnamon, before leaning back in her seat. She sighed. 'I passed out. Got absolutely hammered and ended up sleeping it off for about six hours.'

August couldn't help but laugh, watching as Emma too let a tiny smile tug at the corners of her mouth. 'And how the hell did that come about? Mary Margaret surely can't have been on board with _that _little scheme.'

'She wasn't there.'

The laughter stopped. August's eyes narrowed. 'What?'

Emma shrugged. 'She had to go out.'

Suddenly, it made sense to him: Henry said that Regina had gone round because she had been worried about her. This was why.

'Ah,' August said slowly, watching as Emma took a reluctant sip of the drink that she always ordered but never managed to finish. Suddenly desperately curious as to how the mayor's little house call had actually gone, he asked, 'So you were… on your own? All night?'

Emma nodded, not looking up. 'Mm-hm.' Her shaking fingers ticked against the side of her cup.

The sheriff may have had an aptitude for calling other people's bullshit, August wryly noted, but she certainly didn't possess much of an ability for covering up her own. Seizing the opportunity, he let his usual filthy smile spread across his face. 'You _liar_! You had someone with you, didn't you? Who?'

'It's not important.'

'Emma…'

'August, I promise you – it's nothing like that. Don't get your hopes up.'

'If it's nothing like that then why won't you tell me who it was?'

'Because it's… it's weird.'

'I like weird. Was it Leroy?'

'August! Jesus!' Emma rolled her eyes, forcing herself not to laugh. Eventually she let out a sigh, knowing without question that she would come to regret this decision. 'Okay, fine – it was Regina. She came to check on me.'

There it was.

'The mayor?' August said, stitching a frown across his forehead. 'Really? Doesn't she—?'

'Hate my guts?' Emma interjected, shrugging. 'Yeah. She does.'

'Well. That's certainly an interesting development, then.' His blue eyes watched her intently as she shifted about in her seat, nervously wetting her lips. 'How did that go?'

There was a pause as Emma dragged her thumbnail along the edge of the table.

'It was…' she started, immediately faltering. Despite the broken bone that ran through it, she wrinkled up her nose in confusion. 'It was odd.'

'Ah. She didn't try to cast a spell on you, did she?'

Emma let out a snort of laughter. 'Not exactly.'

'Then what happened?'

'I don't know. I…' she sighed, resting her hand against her tired eyes for a moment. 'I don't remember a lot of it. I mean, I was really shit-faced. But… I don't know. I just remember her being there: I remember sitting on the kitchen floor, and then suddenly she was there and she was helping me up the stairs. Then she sat with me until I went to sleep. Everything else is a bit blurry.'

August blinked: that didn't sound right. 'Wait… are you sure you weren't dreaming?'

'I wasn't _that_ drunk, August,' she said dryly. 'And I don't tend to hallucinate when I drink, anyway.'

'But, for Regina…' he swallowed, shaking his head. 'I'm sorry – it just seems a bit… out of character.'

Emma's green eyes snapped up to examine him for a moment. 'Yeah. I guess it does. But… I don't know. Maybe it was some kind of maternal thing. Or maybe she really does just feel guilty for what happened.'

August remained silent. This hadn't exactly been what he'd expected: when he'd arrived in Storybrooke, finding out that the Evil Queen was not only a mother but a damn dedicated mother at that had been a shock that he still hadn't quite managed to recover from. And now this had happened – not only was Regina displaying traces of actual, discernible _humanity_… but she was doing so for the Saviour, of all people. Of her own free will, she was trying to ensure that Emma Swan was okay.

Something wasn't quite adding up for him.

'Can I ask you something, Emma?' he asked slowly. She swallowed her tiny mouthful of cocoa, nodding.

'Yeah, of course.'

'Since… what happened,' he said tentatively, trying to ignore the sheriff's wince. 'How have you and Regina been?'

She frowned. 'I don't know – I haven't really seen her.'

'I know. But she's still been to see you twice now,' he said. 'On those occasions – how were things?'

'I don't really know what you're asking…'

'Was there fighting?' he clarified, resting his elbows on the table. 'Were things how they normally are?'

Emma paused, thinking about it. She couldn't remember a great deal of the night before, but the feeling of Regina's arm wrapped tightly around her waist and then, later, her cool hand rubbing a tiny circle on her shoulder was still solid and undeniably real. She remembered snapping at her. She also remembered crying against her.

'Not exactly,' she said, frowning. 'I mean, we're never going to be making each other friendship bracelets or anything, but… no. It was different. We were still arguing with each other and I'm pretty sure that she still thinks that this whole thing is my own stupid fault anyway, but… something was different. It was almost like she _gave _a shit. And not just because Henry had asked her to pretend to.'

August fell silent once more, looking down at the table.

_So the Evil Queen is capable of that_, he thought to himself. _That _is_ interesting._

'I suppose you do have a lot in common,' he slowly offered, watching as Emma's face creased into a frown.

'We have Henry in common.'

'More than just that,' he said. Emma only shrugged.

'If you say so,' she said, finally abandoning her hardly-touched cocoa. 'Really, I'm just glad that the constant attempts at trying to fuck me over might have stopped for a little bit. That's certainly a relief.'

As she pulled her red jacket back on, August offered her a small smile. 'Yeah. That's good to hear.'

'I've got to go, anyway,' she said, sliding out of the booth and throwing her money down onto the table. 'See you around, August. No doubt Mary Margaret will have confiscated my whiskey by now, so I'm sure I'll be back at the usual time tomorrow.'

She left the room with her blonde curls caught beneath the collar of her jacket, not bothering to tug them free. August watched her go, his face sinking into a thoughtful frown.

'That's very good to hear,' he repeated to himself, clasping his fists together on top of the table. When Granny came over to ask him if he wanted a refill, he shook his head. Instead he straightened out the lapels of his own leather jacket and rose to his feet, returning to his hotel room with curiosity ticking away at his temples and the nagging, persistent image of the Evil Queen helping the Saviour up the stairs prodding at the backs of his eyes.

* * *

'Mom?' Henry suddenly appeared in the doorway of Regina's study. She jumped, dropping the small piece of paper that she had been holding back onto the desk.

'Henry,' she said, resting her elbows on the edge of the table. 'Is everything okay?'

'Can I come in?'

'Of course you can, sweetie,' she said, watching as he shuffled into the room. She realised with a jolt that he hadn't stepped foot in that office in at least a year.

He took a seat in one of the enormous armchairs in front of his mother's desk, his feet not quite reaching the ground. 'I wanted to ask you something.'

'Go ahead,' she replied.

'About Emma.'

Regina tried to supress a wince. 'I guessed as much.'

Ignoring the hurt that was bubbling up at the back of her throat, wondering when exactly her son had become completely unable to talk to her unless it was with regards to Emma Swan, she waited for him to speak.

He took a deep breath. 'She's not getting better.'

'I know, Henry. But it's only been a week.'

'You saw her last night,' he said quietly. 'How was she?'

For a moment, Regina could only purse her lips together. Henry watched her, half expecting her to explode with annoyance and send him out of the room.

In the end, she simply deflated. Leaning back in her chair, she sighed, 'I'm as worried about her as you are, Henry.'

The boy blinked. 'You are?'

'Of course I am,' she frowned. 'Henry – again with the Evil Queen routine? I am quite capable of empathy, you know.'

Henry sighed, shaking his head. 'I know you are. I'm sorry, Mom. I just… I don't get to _see _her anymore.'

'That's not my fault—'

'I know it's not,' he interrupted, his eyes suddenly glassy. 'I didn't mean it like that. I just meant… I miss her. She won't let me see her because she still doesn't feel better, but I don't know _how _to make her feel better. But she lets_ you_ in – she let you help her.'

'She didn't really _let_ me do anything, Henry,' Regina muttered, looking down at the desk. 'I had to fight a pretty hard battle with her last night.'

'That's what you two always do,' he replied, his eyebrows knitting together. 'But this is different now, isn't it?'

Regina swallowed. 'I suppose so. Miss Swan is… well, Miss Swan isn't Miss Swan at the moment. She needs some support to get her back there.'

'And that's the thing,' Henry immediately leapt on the idea, leaning forwards in his chair. His feet dangled excitedly beneath him. 'She needs support from _us_.'

Regina narrowed her eyes at the word. 'Us?'

'Yeah.'

'Henry – please don't be mistaken. Just because I went to check that she was okay doesn't mean that I in any way want to be friends with Miss Swan. I was just trying to be… nice.'

Henry struggled to supress a smile. 'Mom. You do know that you don't actually hate her, don't you?'

'I never said I hated her,' she said flatly. 'But I most certainly don't like her.'

'No. You're just scared of her,' Henry corrected. His mother blinked in surprise. 'Neither of you realise it, but you're both scared of each other – you're fighting over me all the time, because you think that if the other person's around then I won't want to see you anymore. But you don't have to be scared of each other, because I want you _both _around. And, honestly, Mom? Right now Emma's scared of everyone. She doesn't need to be frightened of you too.'

The mayor opened her mouth to say something, and promptly failed. Her son smiled.

'You just need to let her know that she doesn't have to be afraid of you,' he said. As if it were that simple. 'Once she knows that we're waiting for her whenever she's ready to come back – then she'll do it.'

Regina shook her head to herself, still leaning back in her chair. 'And what makes you think that I _want _her to come back?'

'You do,' Henry said simply. 'I can tell.'

Rolling her eyes, Regina said, 'Are you really only ten?'

'So you tell me.'

'Then you're too smart for your age,' she said, shaking her head at him. Then she sighed once more. 'Fine. I'll try… reaching out, if you think it'll help. But I'm only doing this for you, Henry – you don't deserve to feel abandoned by that woman all over again.'

He ignored this last comment. 'It's for you too though, Mom – you just don't want to admit it.'

'Henry—'

'Not having to hate her can only be a good thing – and so can not having to keep feeling guilty about her,' he interrupted, slowly getting up from his chair. He began to walk towards the door, his forehead creased with thought. 'Emma's _nice_, Mom. And she's definitely not scary. She just needs family around her, and we're the closest thing that she's got to that.'

At that, Regina jumped. '_Henry_. Miss Swan is _not_—'

But her son had slipped out of the door, retreating through the house and leaving the mayor to her paperwork. She sighed to herself, slouching down in her chair in a way that she absolutely never did when her son was around to witness it.

The photo of Emma that she'd been looking at when he had walked into the room lay face down on the desk in front of her. She picked it up once more, examining the angry, teary eyes before her for the tenth time that week.

_You don't have to be afraid of each other_.

Perhaps not, she thought, shoving the photograph back into the bottom drawer of her desk with a sigh. Perhaps having one less enemy could only be a good thing.


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: **So I have an exam in 2 days, and apparently my natural reaction to avoiding revising for it at all costs is now to publish more fanfic instead. Sensible plan. But I hope you all enjoy!_

_starsthatburn x_

* * *

**Chapter Six**

'Oh, God.' Two weeks later, this was Emma's greeting as she opened the door to find the mayor stood there, bouncing uncomfortably on the balls of her feet. 'I promise I haven't had anything to drink yet today, Regina. You can stop worrying.'

'It's barely noon, Miss Swan,' Regina replied with one eyebrow raised. 'I should certainly _hope_ not.'

Emma swallowed, taking in the way that Regina's balled fists were fidgeting by her sides. She narrowed her eyes.

'Shouldn't you be at work?' she asked, leaning against the door.

'I took an early lunch,' the mayor responded, nodding to the apartment behind her. 'I have some things that I need to discuss with you. May I come in?'

Emma forced down a sigh, moving to one side. 'Sure.'

Regina stepped into the room, waiting for Emma to join her before she walked over to the kitchen. Emma nodded for her to sit down and she immediately took up the same seat that she had the previous week, feeling no less uncomfortable and arguably even less sure as to what she was actually doing there.

'You've had your stitches taken out,' she said after a few moments of watching the sheriff struggling to reach the mugs on the top shelf. Clutching one hand to her still-aching torso, Emma finally managed to pull one down with the very tip of her index finger.

'Yeah,' Emma said distractedly, gauging how likely it was that she'd be able to reach another one without cracking one of her ribs back open again. Eventually she spied the same cup that she'd been drinking from that morning sitting in the sink and rinsed it out, ignoring the shudder of disgust that she could clearly see exuding from the mayor out of the corner of her eye. 'Well. They've been out for a while, actually – it has been three weeks since… you know.'

Regina frowned, knowing full well that this was the case because she'd spent every single evening of two of those weeks fielding off questions from her son as to why she still hadn't been round to see Miss Swan since their conversation in her office. Even so, it didn't feel like quite so much time had passed since the town meeting.

'Has it?'

'Apparently.' Emma began dumping spoonfuls of cheap coffee into the mugs, loading her own one up with a disgraceful amount of sugar. Regina wrinkled her nose, forcing herself to stay quiet.

As the kettle boiled Emma leaned back against the counter, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes resting firmly on the floor. The swelling of her cheekbone had finally receded, taking the dirty tinge of her two black eyes with it. The gash that ran down her temple, however, seemed somehow even more prominent now that there were no longer thick black lines of thread dividing it up. Regina dragged her dark eyes over the woman's body, noticing with a twinge of something that could have been regret just how thin it had gotten, before she let out a sigh.

'My son misses you, Miss Swan.'

It was impossible to ignore the shudder of guilt that reverberated through the sheriff's body at these words.

'I know.'

'Are you planning on spending any time with him soon?'

'Oh, you actually want me to see him now?' Emma replied, still not looking up. 'That's a novelty.'

There was no bite to her words, however: her hostility sounded utterly forced. Regina chewed at her bottom lip. She had hoped that, in the two weeks since she'd last seen her, the frightened child who had replaced her sheriff might have managed to grow up again. The sight of her lank blonde curls and angrily tensed shoulders, however, told her that this definitely was not the case.

'Of course I do,' Regina forced herself to speak firmly, sitting upright. 'He thinks that you've abandoned him, Miss Swan – he knows that you're talking to August and he knows that you're even talking to me. Surely I don't have to explain to you how hurtful that must be to him?'

'Of course you don't,' Emma snapped, wrenching the kettle off of the stove even though it hadn't actually started whistling yet. 'I'm not a complete moron, Regina. But do you really think he's going to want to spend time with me like this? I'm not exactly juggling oranges and making balloon animals right now.'

Regina forced down a laugh. 'Nor have you ever been – and yet, for some reason, he likes you anyway. I can't believe you think that seeing you like this will actually frighten him away.'

'He's a kid,' Emma said flatly, stirring the mayor's coffee more vigorously than was strictly necessary. 'I may not have _much_ experience with children, but I do know that seeing your mother randomly breaking down into tears because she realised that she can't even hug you properly anymore is going to be a little bit upsetting.'

'No more so than being shut out completely,' Regina replied. Emma shot her a look, but didn't reply.

'Miss Swan,' Regina groaned. 'I'm just asking that you try. That's all. And I _know_,' she added just as the blonde opened her mouth to protest, 'that you _are _trying. And I know that things have been exceedingly difficult for you recently. But, like it or not, when you decided to walk back into your son's life again you took on a whole lot of responsibilities with it. I'm afraid that includes spending time with him when you honestly feel like you'd rather curl up in a ball and cry.'

Emma's hand froze over the steaming cups of coffee, the spoon dangling between two of her fingers. Slowly turning her head, she looked at the mayor with a curious expression on her face.

'What?' Regina asked darkly. For a moment, Emma just watched her. Then she shook her head, turning back to the sink and tossing the spoon into it.

'Nothing,' she muttered. 'It doesn't matter.'

She began to bring the cups over to the breakfast bar, her hands still shaking. She had filled them up too far and so she walked slowly, frowning with concentration as she tried not to spill any of the hot liquid onto her fingers.

Regina watched her with a painful thudding inside her chest. The sheriff looked… pathetic. There was no other word for it. It had been three weeks and her bruises may have healed, but her tiny, fragile body and her sickeningly sleepless eyes told the mayor everything else that she could possibly need to know.

When she spoke again, her voice was anxious.

'I didn't just come over here to lecture you, Miss Swan,' she muttered, nodding her thanks for the drink that had been placed in front of her. Emma leaned her body forwards against the counter, no longer unable to sit down next to Regina but somehow still unwilling to do so.

'You didn't?' she said, rolling her eyes with mock-relief. 'Well. That makes a nice change.'

'I came here to tell you,' the mayor ignored her, taking a deep breath, 'that I think that you should consider going back to work next week.'

Emma froze. Her face clouded over.

'What?'

'Emma, this isn't healthy,' Regina said, shaking her head. 'You've kept yourself locked up in this place for the last three weeks. The only time you go out is at the crack of dawn when no one else is around and so you think that no one will see you. Other than those little excursions, I'm fairly sure that the only person you ever really speak to is that moronic roommate of yours. You can't seriously expect to recover if you won't even go outside.'

'Regina,' Emma said in a low voice that was full of warning. 'You gave me _indefinite _leave from the sheriff station. Surely that was because you knew that it was going to take more than a friendly nudge and a snap of your fingers to get me back there?'

'Of course it was,' Regina sighed, taking a tentative sip of her coffee just to show willing. She immediately wished that she hadn't. 'I'm not saying that you're ready to go back, Miss Swan, because evidently you aren't. But at this rate, you won't ever be. You have to take the leap at some point.'

'I'm not going back.'

Regina rolled her eyes. 'You have to. Sidney will still be there – he can help to ease you back in, to keep an eye on you. You have to admit that it might be good for you to have an… an ally around the office.'

Emma's eyes narrowed at this word. 'Regina. I'm not ready for this, I promise you.'

'And how is sitting around here day in and day out going to make you more so?' the mayor asked sharply, drumming her fingers against the table. 'Emma – you're getting worse. Have you looked at yourself recently? You look _ill_. You obviously still aren't sleeping, you look at everyone like you're terrified that they're going to try and kill you the moment that your back is turned, and you're being _reckless_. That night when I came round to check on you, you could have—'

Emma's narrowed eyes flashed at her, and Regina suddenly stopped talking. Those sharp green laser points told her, clearly and firmly, that they were not going to talk about that night. Not now. Not ever.

The mayor sighed, tugging a hand through her hair.

'It's only Wednesday, Emma,' she said gently. 'By Monday, you might feel differently.'

'I seriously doubt it.'

'You can at least give it a try.'

'You're really doing this?' Emma snapped. 'You're going to force me to go back just to suit you?'

'I'm not forcing you,' Regina said simply, shaking her head. 'If you're really not ready, then I will accept that. But this isn't about you not being ready, is it, Miss Swan? This is about you being frightened. And all I'm trying to do here is show you… show you that you don't _need _to be frightened anymore.'

A long pause followed her words. Emma watched her rapidly blinking dark eyes, wondering why on earth the mayor of all people could be quite so intent on getting her back into that sheriff station: whenever she _had_ been there, Regina had been the very first person queuing up to tell her what an atrocious mess she was making of it. How the tables had turned.

Emma let out a juddering breath, pressing her hand against the ache in her side.

'I just…' she started, then faltered. She closed her eyes for a moment. 'I'm just not sure I can do it.'

'But you can try,' Regina said gently. 'Just one day. That's all I'm asking for: I'll even give you permission to turn around and leave the moment that you step through the doors if it's too overwhelming when you get there. I just... I want you to _try _and let yourself believe that things can go back to normal again.'

Emma could only shake her head, a tired frown resting between her eyebrows.

'Why do you _care_, Regina?' she asked, crossing her shaking arms over her chest. 'You've got what you wanted – Sidney's in office. What the _hell _could make you want to see me kick him out again?'

Emma didn't notice the flash of sharp, tormenting guilt that crossed the mayor's face. There was a pause as she struggled to think of an answer.

'As it turns out,' Regina slowly offered, 'Mr Glass is… slightly less competent than I initially gave him credit for. Consider yourself to be the lesser of two evils.'

A tiny smirk twisted at Emma's lips for a moment.

'I'm going to take that as a compliment,' she said in a low voice, almost laughing. Regina raised one eyebrow.

'You should,' she said, allowing herself to smile. The guilt in her chest tugged once more. 'It's the closest that you're ever going to get to one, dear.'

Emma rolled her eyes, letting herself stare up at the wooden beams that stretched across the apartment's ceiling for the next few seconds.

The sigh that followed was exhausted, and defeated. 'I'm not promising anything.'

'I'm not asking you to.'

'I mean, I'm _really _not promising anything. This whole idea is just insane, Regina. If I end up back in that office before the end of October you can consider yourself a miracle worker.'

'Miss Swan. Stop panicking. I just want you to think about it – that's all.'

Emma sighed, rubbing her fingers against the bridge of her nose. 'Fine. I'll think about it. But that's it.'

'Excellent,' Regina said in a low voice, not smiling. When Emma looked back up again her breath immediately caught in her throat: those green eyes had never looked so pleading before.

The mayor swallowed, beginning to slip down from her uncomfortable perch. 'I suppose I should get back to work. If… if you don't need me to stay?'

'Why would I need you to stay?' Emma said flatly, looking down at her feet. 'I'm an adult. I can look after myself.'

There was a pause. Regina couldn't work out if the sheriff even realised the significance of what she'd just said.

'Of course,' she said slowly, receiving no response. 'I'll see myself out then. Thank you, Emma.'

'For what?' Emma's gaze snapped curiously back up again.

'The coffee,' Regina said. 'And for… hearing me out.'

Emma only shrugged, a sad smile on her permanently downturned lips. 'No problem.'

The mayor turned to leave. As she approached the door, however, with her hand outstretched, the same tiny voice called her back again.

'Regina?'

She turned back around, her eyebrows raised.

'Yes?'

'Can you…' Emma muttered, looking down at where her toe was nudging at a crack in the floorboards. Her arms were crossed fiercely against her chest as she spoke. From beneath them Regina could just make out the edges of her trembling fingers. 'Can you tell Henry that I miss him too?'

Something sharp stabbed at the back of Regina's throat. She nodded.

'Of course.'

She left then, tugging the door shut behind her. She stood on the other side of it for the next few seconds, her knuckles white around the straps of her handbag, her breathing stilted.

Emma stood on the other side, her arms still crossed and her head pounding.

* * *

_If anyone wants more tumblr friends, I'm **starsthatburn **over there as well - please come and say hi! x_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

The clock on the wall read 9:28am when the phone in the mayor's office rang.

'Regina?' the voice on the other end said. 'I'm afraid she's not here.'

Regina wrinkled her nose, sighing. Part of her had honestly been expecting Emma to return to the station that morning – then again, thinking back to the hollowness beneath the blonde's eyes the previous week, she couldn't quite recall where that optimism had come from.

'Thank you, Sidney,' she replied, reaching for her keys. 'I'll take care of it.'

She locked the office door behind her and slowly began to make her way across town to the sheriff's apartment, her fingers twitching in her pockets.

* * *

'You said you weren't going to force me.' Emma didn't bother to say hello. When she opened the door to find the mayor yet again stood there, her face had crumpled. She leant her head wearily against the doorframe and sighed, 'You _know _I'm not ready, Regina.'

'No, I know,' the mayor responded. However, as she looked the blonde woman up and down she realised that, for the first time in nearly four weeks, Emma was fully dressed: from her manly boots all the way up to the vile red pleather that normally required surgically detaching from her body, the sheriff hardly looked like a woman who'd woken up with the intention of staying inside all day. Regina swallowed. 'But when you didn't show up… I was still concerned.'

'You don't need to be,' Emma muttered. 'I'm fine.'

'I'm getting a little bored of that record, Miss Swan,' Regina sighed, taking a step into the apartment without waiting for Emma to invite her inside. 'You're not fooling anyone, so you may as well save your breath.'

She heard a frustrated sigh coming behind her just before the blonde shut the door. Regina turned around, making a conscious effort to stand upright. Before her Emma's shoulders were hunched forwards, more so than usual, her thumbs looped into the pockets of her jeans. Despite her attire, Regina couldn't help but notice that the blonde's face was utterly devoid of make up and her hair looked like it hadn't seen a shower or even a brush in several days.

'It looks like you woke up with good intentions, Miss Swan,' she said slowly, gesturing to the sheriff's jacket and boots. Emma looked down at herself, shrugging.

'Sort of,' she mumbled. 'Though I didn't exactly wake up.'

'You're still not sleeping?'

'That depends on what your definition of sleeping involves,' Emma offered her a wry smile. 'If half an hour every other night counts, then yeah, I'm sleeping like a goddamn log.'

Regina didn't laugh at what had obviously been an attempt at a joke. 'Miss Swan…'

'But yes,' the sheriff interrupted, running a finger below her left eye. 'Okay. If you must know, I _was_ planning on coming in today.'

'And what changed?'

'Seriously? Look at me, Regina,' Emma gestured up towards the sallow skin of her face, to the eyes that were attempting to flutter closed any time that she stopped moving. 'I'm not _exactly_ at the top of my game today. I can't go into work like this.'

'No one's expecting you to wrestle a drugs lord, Miss Swan,' Regina said, tilting her head to one side. 'Honestly, I wasn't even expecting you to do any paperwork. All I wanted was for you to go into the office for a minute, just to show yourself that you _can _do it. That was all. I promise you.'

Emma barely managed to mask the surprise that spread like a cloud across her face. She shrugged, looking down at the floorboards once more.

'Well…' she muttered, crossing her arms across her chest. 'I'm not… I really wanted to. I did. But then I… I had to put on this jacket, because my other one still had blood on it, and…'

The sentence wisped off into nothing. Regina simply watched her for a moment, her breath caught in her chest. Then she turned away, making her way across to the kitchen so that she could fill the kettle up with water.

'What are you doing?' Emma asked, taking a cautious step towards the counter. Regina didn't turn around.

'You need caffeine,' she said simply, placing the kettle onto the stove before beginning to rummage in the cupboards for coffee that she could actually drink. 'And none of that disgusting freeze-dried rubbish that you keep forcing onto me. Miss Blanchard must have something better than that around here.'

'She does, but I don't really—'

'Where is it?'

Emma rolled her eyes, leaning against the wooden beam that stretched from the floor to the roof of the kitchen. 'Bottom cupboard.'

'Good,' Regina said, locating it. 'Now sit down.'

Quite inexplicably, Emma found herself doing as she was told.

As she sat on the stool that Regina herself had been perched on only a couple of days before, her feet dangling beneath her, she watched with a blank expression as the mayor swept about the room. She looked completely unperturbed, opening and closing drawers like she owned the place – which, Emma realised with a vague sigh, she sort of did. This was Regina's town, and she definitely knew how to act like it.

'Wait,' Emma said after a few moments of watching the mayor's actions without really taking them in. 'What _are_ you doing?'

Regina looked over her shoulder, a silver thermos clutched in her left hand. 'Making you coffee, Miss Swan. I thought that we'd already established that.'

'In a thermos?' Emma narrowed her eyes. 'What, we don't have any mugs that are quite to your liking?'

'This is to go,' she replied calmly, pouring the water inside without bothering to look back at Emma's agonised expression.

'I never said I was going!'

'You were this morning,' Regina said, still not looking round. 'Nothing's changed since then.'

'I told you, I can't—'

'Nothing's changed, Miss Swan,' she repeated, snapping her dark eyes onto the blonde's face so sharply that she fell silent at once. 'Nothing out there is any different. The only change between now and six o'clock this morning is that you're scared again. And _that _is why you need to walk into that office today.'

'Regina,' Emma took a deep breath, trying to summon some kind of serenity back into her body. She closed her eyes as she spoke. 'Look. I really don't know if you're trying to antagonise me right now or if you're genuinely trying to help me – but, either way, this is actually none of your business. _I _get to decide when I'm ready to go back to work. And today – I'm not.'

When her words were met with silence she forced herself to open her eyes once more. She jumped with surprise when she found that the mayor was suddenly stood directly in front of her, leaning her hip against the counter.

'You're scared.'

Emma rolled her eyes. 'Yes. I _am_. Is that surprising?'

'No,' Regina shrugged, pursing her lips. 'But it's disappointing.'

Green eyes stretched wide open. 'Wait. What the _hell_ do—'

'A few months ago,' Regina spoke over her, her voice calm and level, 'you told me not to underestimate you. That I had _no idea _what you were capable of. Do you remember that?'

'Yes,' Emma gritted out, resisting the urge to reach out and slap the mayor's uncharacteristically patient face. 'What's your point?'

'That woman,' Regina said, 'is the same woman who punched me in the face outside my own father's grave. The same woman who fought tooth and nail for a job that she wasn't sure that she even wanted, and then – as a part of that job – stood up to a man with a gun just so that she could protect a room full of strangers and a woman whom she cannot stand.'

'I don't—'

'And while that woman may be extremely abrasive, and irritating, and poorly dressed, and _rude_ – I can't pretend that I don't admire her.'

Emma blinked, her mouth agape. 'Wait. What?'

'I'm not saying it again,' Regina's face remained expressionless. 'So don't bother. What I'm trying to say is, you have every right to be frightened. You also have every right to quit this job and leave this town for good because it's hard for you to want to be a part of it anymore. But I think we both know that that woman, the one who climbed down a mine shaft to save her son's life, isn't about to let you do that. _That _woman is waiting for you to take a deep breath and walk back into your office again.'

Silence followed her words. Deep creases ran across Emma's forehead, and rapidly blinking green eyes suggested that tears might not be far off.

'You…' Emma faltered, swallowing, and tried again. 'I cannot _believe _that you're using all of that against me.'

'I play dirty, Miss Swan,' Regina said, a smirk twisting about her lips. Emma let out a small snort of laughter. 'But am I wrong?'

With a sigh, Emma admitted, 'No.'

'Are you willing to give it a try?' Regina pressed, leaning forwards. 'No paperwork: definitely no street patrols. Just ten steps into the office. That's all you need to do. Then you can run back home again and take that god-awful jacket off and maybe actually get some sleep knowing that you _can _do it – that you don't need to be scared of the whole world, Miss Swan. It's not all teeth and claws.'

'Just all the parts of it that I've seen,' Emma muttered, scrubbing a fist below her eyes. Finally, she threw her head back and let out a bitter sigh. 'Jesus, _fine_. I'll go and I'll see Sidney and let him know that I'm actually alive. But that's _it_, okay? If I get there and you've got three weeks worth of incident reports waiting for me to file then I will not hesitate in running you over with my car.'

'I wouldn't expect any less,' Regina said, offering the blonde woman a surprisingly warm smile. She had turned away again before Emma could register whether the expression on her face had actually denoted pride, or whether in her sleep-deprived haze she'd simply imagined it.

* * *

'I'm sorry for making you walk,' Emma said after a few minutes of stilted silence, her eyes on the mayor's impractically high black heels. Regina looked over at her as she spoke. 'I just… I thought I could do with the fresh air.'

'It's quite alright,' Regina responded, turning her gaze back to the road ahead of them. 'Walking is definitely preferable to being forced into that scrapheap that you call a car, at any rate.'

'Funny,' Emma muttered, still looking down at the sidewalk. She hadn't looked Regina in the eye since before they'd left the apartment.

The mayor glanced back at her with a frown slowly beginning to crease through her forehead. Emma had been subdued when she'd arrived at the loft, that much was painfully apparent – but now she was far beyond that. She looked… defeated. As she walked she clutched the thermos between her hands like a child clinging desperately onto their lunch box on their first day of school. Regina realised with a jolt just how much she looked like Henry in that moment: she looked tiny, and scared, and like she was stubbornly forcing herself not to cry.

Regina swallowed. 'It's going to be okay, Miss Swan.'

Emma jumped at the softness of her voice. Finally she looked up, peering curiously into the dark eyes that were watching her.

'Easy for you to say.'

'Sidney's there to help you.'

'Of course,' Emma nodded, looking back down at the coffee in her hands. 'Because he was so much help the last time that I was in trouble.'

There was a beat as Regina considered this: she had simply assumed that Emma would appreciate having Sidney around the office for a little while, given that she apparently still thought that he was on her team. She had never considered that being in the same room as one of the men who had done absolutely nothing to rescue her from Moe's violence – who had in fact, however indirectly, managed to bring some more of it against the back of her skull – might cause some more problems of its own.

'Oh,' Regina said flatly, shaking her head. 'Miss Swan. I didn't think—'

'It's okay,' Emma interrupted, tightening her trembling fingers around the silver thermos. 'Sorry. I'm not trying to be difficult. It's just… you know.'

Even though she couldn't possibly pretend to understand, Regina nodded. 'Of course.'

They walked on in silence for the next couple of minutes, moving past Granny's on the other side of the road. Regina found her eyes being drawn to it, automatically seeking out the same booth by the window as she did every morning, even though the woman that she always looked for was currently walking by her side. As she stared, however, she caught sight of a pair of startlingly blue eyes peering back at her. They blinked, then frowned, witnessing the sight of the Evil Queen and the Saviour strolling calmly down Main Street side by side, and seemingly struggling to process it. Regina swallowed, watching as August got up from his seat and turned away through the diner, disappearing through the back door without a backwards glance.

'How's Henry doing?'

The mayor jumped, turning to face Emma and her unexpected question.

'Sorry?'

'Henry,' Emma repeated, looking anxiously over at her. 'Is he doing okay?'

'He's fine,' Regina replied, thinking back to her son's delighted face when she'd come home the previous Wednesday, reluctantly announcing that she'd finally been to see his birth mother again. She then forced herself not to think about the flash of disappointment that had followed once she'd told him that Miss Swan probably still wasn't quite ready to see him again.

Without saying a word of any of that, Emma somehow still managed to pick up on all of it. 'Oh.'

'He understands, Emma,' Regina hastily added, unable to bear the crumpled look on the sheriff's face. 'He really does. He just misses you – that's all. He wants things to go back to normal again.'

Something that almost resembled a smile tugged at the corners of Emma's mouth.

'Normal,' she sighed, rolling her eyes. 'Right.'

Regina realised in the silence that followed that she could hear the coffee in the thermos splashing around beneath Emma's shaking hands. Something hard rose against the back of her throat.

'I'm surprised he wants to see me at all, if I'm honest,' Emma slowly admitted. 'I mean, I wouldn't. I've been terrible recently. It would serve me right if he told me to go back to Boston and never speak to him again.'

'You don't really believe that, do you?' Regina asked in a low voice. Emma shrugged.

'I don't know,' she said. 'Sort of.'

'Miss Swan,' Regina took a deep breath. 'You cannot _seriously _believe he's that capricious, can you? I mean, I do realise that he can be quite fickle at times, but even he doesn't change his mind _that_ readily.'

Emma just blinked at her, watching as the mayor shook her head with frustration.

'He _truly _misses you,' she continued with a groan, like this was the most painful admission that she'd ever uttered before in her life. 'And, if you must know, he hasn't been the same since you stopped seeing him. He's trying to be patient and he's trying to be understanding, but he's _ten_, Miss Swan – he's struggling. We're all struggling. Things are difficult at the moment and I think it… I think it would be beneficial – not just for him, but for you as well – if you let yourself back into his life. Really. Because there's only so much rejection that a small boy can take.'

They were only half a block away from the sheriff station, but they had stopped walking. Emma's left hand remained clutched around the thermos while her right had shakily found its way up to the hollow of her throat, gripping hold of her necklace in a manner that reminded Regina all too painfully of the schoolteacher that she was living with. Regina hadn't realised that you could develop such a habit, such a pleading expression, after going twenty-eight years without ever meeting the mother whom you inherited it from.

And there it was again: that guilt, tugging at her chest like there was a hook through her heart.

'You…' Emma said in a quiet voice, finally meeting Regina's gaze with unblinking, glistening eyes. 'You _want _me to come back?'

Regina swallowed, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her coat. 'Henry wants it.'

'But you just said—'

'I know what I said,' she said calmly, forcing down a sigh. 'Yes. Fine. I think it would be good for you to come back. I'm _requesting _that you do. Happy?'

A smile flickered across Emma's face, almost distracting the mayor's attention away from the tears that were prickling at her green eyes.

'Yeah,' she admitted, shrugging. 'Sort of.'

Regina rolled her eyes, letting out an exhalation of laughter. 'Then you're far too easily pleased. I'm not inviting you for thanksgiving dinner, Miss Swan – don't go getting your hopes up just yet.'

Emma looked down at the sidewalk that stretched out between them, that tiny, sad smile still drawn across her lips. 'If you say so, Madame Mayor.'

After a moment of silence, she dragged her eyes back up until they rested on the sheriff station that was sat only a few dozen metres away. Regina watched as she inhaled sharply, gritting her teeth together.

'I suppose I'd better do this thing, then.'

'Miss Swan,' Regina said, all of a sudden regretting this whole grand scheme of hers. Regardless of her reasons – as logical as they had sounded to her in her head – it was still evidently clear, both to her and to every other person who had turned to stare as they'd walked past, that Emma was still struggling. Her shoulders were hunched and her eyes were pink and the blonde curls that Regina normally eyed with a sort of disgusted envy were scraped back from her face in a haphazard ponytail, its ends ragged in the wintry Maine drizzle. She was hardly the picture of authority, and she already looked like she'd rather cry then walk any closer towards the station. 'If you're not ready – if you want to go back… I won't stop you.'

Emma offered her a tight smile. 'No. You were right – I need to try. I've got to get over this at some point. And I'm here now: I guess this is as good a time as any.'

A pulse of something that could have been pride ricocheted through the mayor's chest. She glanced at the building behind her.

'Would you like me to come in with you?'

'No,' Emma said, shrugging. 'You've done enough. Honestly.'

'Emma—'

'It's okay, Regina,' she interrupted, smiling faintly. 'I mean it. You basically dragged me out of that apartment and, even though I kind of want to kick you for it, I suspect that I'll probably be grateful for it later. So let's just leave it at that.'

The brunette nodded, her hands still thrust deep into her pockets. 'Okay. If you're sure.'

'I am,' Emma said, taking a deep breath. 'Right. Time to get this over with, I suppose.'

With that she threw the mayor one last smile, then stepped around her and began to walk down the street and back towards her old office. Regina watched her the whole way, unable to fathom why she felt slightly disheartened when the blonde didn't turn around to check that she was still there.

As soon as Emma had disappeared through the station door, Regina walked over to the nearest bench and perched herself on the very edge of it, her knees pressed firmly together. Keeping her eyes on the dull grey building, the mayor waited for the next ten minutes to see if the sheriff would reappear. Ten turned into twenty. As the drizzle turned to rain and Regina's legs began to prickle with the cold, she finally sighed and forced herself to stand back up again. An unfamiliar pride, mixed with an even more unusual disappointment, raked its nails down her cold body as she walked back to City Hall alone.

* * *

_**A/N:** Thanks so much for reading this chapter, guys!I'm **starsthatburn** over on tumblr if you want to come and say hi! :) x_


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: **To say a MASSIVE THANK YOU for all of the follows and favourites and lovely lovely reviews, I'm going to start doing what some other fic writers already do - I'll send a message to every **50th reviewer** and offer to write them a little one-shot fic based upon a prompt that they give me. SO, the 150th reviewer (which is the very next person from when I'm writing this...) will be the first person I contact :) obviously if no one has anything that they want me to write then just ignore any messages I send you. I just wanted to do something nice for you all to say thanks :D_

_I hope you enjoy! I realise that I described this as slow-burn swan queen and, motherfucker, it is SLOW. BLOODY. BURN. But I promise that the stuff you're all waiting for will be coming soon! Pinky swear. Honest._

_xxx_

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

'I don't understand,' Henry said, leaning forwards across the table. His forehead was deeply furrowed. 'Are you sure that's what you saw?'

'I'm positive,' August said. He was sat back in his chair, trying to act casual. Inside, however, his nerves were jumping. His heart had been pattering excitedly in his chest since the morning before, when he'd been sat in the exact same spot that he was in now.

'They were together?' Henry clarified, frowning. 'Just… talking?'

'And walking,' August shrugged. 'Don't forget the walking.'

Henry leant back in his seat, sighing. 'It doesn't make sense. My mom doesn't _like _Emma. She only went to see her last week because I asked her to… why would she be walking her to work? And why wouldn't she tell me?'

'I have no idea,' August said in a low voice. 'But that's what you need to try and find out.'

'Me?' Henry asked. 'Why?'

'She's not going to tell anyone else,' August said, sipping his coffee. 'Your mom doesn't exactly have a way with making friends, so I hear.'

Henry wrinkled his nose. 'She has Kathryn.'

'Yeah,' August let out a laugh. 'But I get the impression that you don't exactly approve of her.'

Henry looked down, not replying. The half-full mug of cocoa before him had gone cold.

'What don't you like about her?' August asked, resting his arms against the edge of the table.

'I don't _not _like her,' Henry muttered, running his finger around the rim of the cup. 'It's just… she's the reason that Mary Margaret and David aren't together.'

'Are you sure about that?' August asked. 'I kind of got the impression that _they _were the reason that they're not together.'

Henry grinned. 'Yeah. Well. That too.'

'And why do you care so much about those two, anyway?'

Henry blinked. 'Because they're meant to be together.'

'Because they're Snow White and Prince Charming?'

'Yeah,' Henry shrugged. 'It's okay. You don't have to believe me.'

'I never said I didn't believe you,' August said casually. Henry glanced up, curiosity twitching across his features. 'The thing is though, kid – Kathryn _is _her only friend. Which might be understandable given her… _manner_, shall we call it. But I'm starting to think that maybe her and Emma being friends – maybe that's not such a bad idea.'

'Friends?' Henry frowned. 'You think they like each other?'

'I don't know. But I _do_ know that, for whatever reason, Emma trusts her more than she's trusting anyone else right now. And you can make out of that whatever you want.'

As Henry's face scrunched up with thought, August considered the thought that had really brought him to have this conversation: he knew the woman that Regina truly was. He also knew all about the curse that had caused him to be there. It was a curse that needed breaking, and it was a curse that was_ never_ going to get broken if Emma remained quite this devastated for much longer. So he only had one option: in the meantime, the curse needed weakening instead.

It made perfect sense to him. Regina and Emma clearly had more in common than either one of them was willing to admit, and right now it was quite obvious that Emma needed as many friends as she could get. But the fact alone was that Regina appeared to _want _to spend time with her, as much as she tried to deny it, and anything at all that seemed to imply that there was a trace of humanity dwelling within the Evil Queen was something that August was going to cling onto for all he was worth.

'Okay,' Henry said slowly, his eyes creasing with a smile. 'So maybe them being friends couldn't hurt.'

'I couldn't agree more.'

'And maybe… maybe my mom _deserves _another friend.'

August blinked. 'Do you think?'

'Yeah. I do.' Henry sighed. 'I think she's lonely, August. I'm the only person she's got and since Emma got here, I'm hardly there either. I just…' He paused, shaking his head. 'I want her to be happy. I want them both to be happy.'

A small smile crept over August's face. 'You're a good kid, Henry.'

'Not really,' Henry shrugged, picking up his backpack. He looped the straps over his shoulders with a sigh. 'Not recently.'

As the boy left the diner August felt a tiny tug of sadness inside his chest. It was quickly followed by a twinge of pain through his leg. His breath hissed through his teeth, his eyes shutting momentarily as he waited for it to subside. By the time his eyes had reopened Henry had gone, and he was yet again left with the perplexing image of the Evil Queen and the Saviour walking side by side down the road, talking not like enemies, but like actual human beings.

* * *

Emma returned home that evening, exhausted and shaking under the weight of all of the forms that Sidney had managed to incorrectly fill out over the previous three weeks, to find her roommate stood in the centre of the apartment waiting for her. Her round face was pale, her hands trembling by her sides.

'Emma,' she gasped the moment that the blonde staggered through the door. 'Where have you _been_?'

Emma dropped the stack of papers onto the table, stretching out her arms until they clicked. 'I went to work.'

'You could have _told _me!' Mary Margaret exploded, putting her hands against her hips. 'I've been worried sick – I got home and you were just _gone, _Emma. And you left your cell here so I couldn't even call you. I was about three minutes away from phoning the police.'

'That probably wouldn't have been such a bad idea,' Emma said, rubbing her tired eyes. 'Since the police would've been me.'

Mary Margaret opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. She narrowed her eyes. 'Did you just make a joke?'

Emma looked up at her, raising one eyebrow. 'Is that so surprising?'

'Kind of, yeah,' Mary Margaret said, moving across the apartment until she was stood in front of her roommate. Taking Emma's chin, she looked into her eyes for a moment, trying to gauge what was going on.

Emma blinked. 'What are you doing?'

'Why did you go back to work?' Mary Margaret asked curiously, letting go of the blonde's face. 'Were you planning to all weekend?'

'Not exactly,' Emma sighed, sitting down at the kitchen table with a resigned thud. Mary Margaret slid into the chair opposite her, folding her arms across the surface. 'It's complicated.'

'I'm listening.'

'Someone put the idea into my head,' Emma said, swallowing. 'I was kind of considering it, but then I felt like crap this morning and so decided not to. But then… they came round to check on me and kind of persuaded me to go anyway.'

Mary Margaret absorbed this information, her hazel eyes narrowing as she realised exactly what her roommate was telling her. 'Emma. Was this "someone", by any chance, Regina?'

'…it might have been.'

'And are you sure that she didn't force you to go back?'

'_No_,' Emma said, more firmly than she'd intended. 'No. I promise you. She… it was weird. She said she wanted me to go back because she thought it would help me. She thought that the more time I spent in here, the worse the outside would start to feel.'

Mary Margaret's face collapsed. 'But I've been saying the same thing for weeks.'

A hand reached out to squeeze hers for a moment. 'I know. I'm sorry. It's just… the mayor has the capacity to be a bit more firm about it than you do.'

'I suppose,' Mary Margaret huffed, looking down at where Emma's fingers were still pressed against her own. 'So, what happened? She came round and talked you into it and off you went?'

'No…' Emma said slowly, retracting her hand and placing it in her lap. 'She… she kind of walked me there.'

There was a pause. 'Are you sure?'

'Yeah, Mary Margaret, I'm pretty sure.'

'That doesn't sound much like Regina,' the brunette frowned. 'Was she… was she _nice _about it?'

Another pause. 'She was _really _nice about it. She was verging on patient. It was bizarre.'

Mary Margaret sat back in her chair for a moment, absorbing this new information. She couldn't quite picture it: Mayor Mills helping out the one person in the town whom she actually hated more than she hated _her_. It didn't make sense. And yet…

'What?' Emma asked, watching the cloud of realisation that was spreading across her roommate's face.

Mary Margaret swallowed. 'Emma. How much do you remember of that night when… when I wasn't here?'

Emma winced. 'How is that relevant?'

'Because I know that Regina came round.'

'…what? How?'

'She was still here when I got back.'

The blonde's forehead creased in confusion. 'She was? Why?'

'The kitchen… she'd been clearing it up.'

Emma thought back to that night; to the mess of photos and whiskey that she'd left spread across the floor. She'd always just assumed that Mary Margaret had cleaned it up out of guilt. It had kind of accounted for why she'd never mentioned it.

'You're sure?'

'Yeah. When I got back, she didn't realise I was there right away: she was just putting all of your photos away. But then she got distracted by one and was stood there looking at it for a while before I said anything.'

This caused Emma to jump. 'She was looking at one of my photos? Which one?'

'I have no idea.'

'Did she put it back?'

'Well. I guess so,' Mary Margaret shrugged. 'I was a bit distracted, I didn't really notice. But I don't see any reason why she'd want to keep it.'

Emma nodded, but there was uncertainty carved into her features. 'I guess.'

The pair sat in silence for a moment, thinking about all of this. Mary Margaret was still struggling to absorb the fact that Regina Mills had actually taken to helping her roommate recover – not just once, but on multiple occasions. She shook her head to herself, reeling at what a powerful thing guilt must really be.

Emma, meanwhile, was stuck thinking about the photos. Why had Regina been looking at them in the first place?

'I suppose the thing is,' Mary Margaret eventually said, her eyes looking down at the table between them, 'that we always assume that Regina is… well, a bit evil, because of the way that she's always behaved around us. But maybe that doesn't necessarily mean that she _is _evil.'

'What do you mean?'

'There has to be some good in her,' the brunette said thoughtfully. 'She adopted Henry, after all. She loves him more than anything. And people who fight _that _hard for their son can't just be intrinsically wicked and nothing else. There always has to be some light and some darkness.'

Emma considered this. 'I suppose. But since what happened… she hasn't really been evil at all.'

'You think she feels guilty?'

'Oh no, I know she feels guilty. It's written all over her face, even if she won't admit it. But it's more than that. I think…' she paused, sighing. Mary Margaret watched as she ran a hand through her lank hair. 'I think that she's trying to include me in her life. I'm sure that Henry must have asked her to, but even so – she's making an effort to be nice to me and it's kind of weird.'

'Bad weird?'

'No,' Emma said quietly. 'Not bad. Not good, either. Just… weird.'

'You should make the most of it,' Mary Margaret smiled. 'Who knows how long it'll last.'

'Yeah,' Emma let out a snort of laughter. 'That's true.'

She fell quiet again. Mary Margaret watched the thoughtful frown that had etched its way across her forehead. Emma didn't seem to notice her staring: she sat cross-legged on her chair, both of her hands clasped in her lap, with her green eyes pinned firmly onto the dented wooden table before her. As she thought about Regina and what she'd actually done for her that day, she seemed to forget that her roommate was there at all.

'I'm going to have a shower,' Mary Margaret eventually said, making Emma jump. 'Or do you want to get in first?'

'No, it's fine,' Emma said, glancing up at her. 'You go ahead.'

'I'll get started on dinner when I'm done,' Mary Margaret said, getting up from the table. 'Spaghetti okay?'

'Yeah, great. Thanks.'

As her roommate left the kitchen, Emma's gaze slowly crawled up the stairs and towards her bedroom door. Something ticked away inside her head for a moment. Getting up from her chair, she forced herself up the stairs and into her room, dragging the dusty old box with the folded blanket on top from underneath her bed. The collection of photos was stacked neatly beneath it, all of their edges precisely aligned in a way that she never usually bothered to do herself. Normally they were scattered haphazardly across the entirety of the box, crumpled in the corners, waiting for her to sift through them all. She didn't know how she hadn't noticed their new arrangement before now.

It was hard to say if any were missing because she had never counted exactly how many there were. But there was something different about them anyway: now that she knew that Regina had been looking at them they felt warmer beneath her hands, as if the mayor's fingers were still clutching hold of them. Emma frowned, looking down at her own teary, angry face, before shoving the photos back into the box. They remained in their neat pile, however. Then the blanket was folded on top of them and the box was pushed back under the bed, out of sight once more.

* * *

There was a knock at the door just as Regina was serving dinner.

'Henry,' she called out to her son. 'Will you go and see who that is?'

Henry put down the cutlery that he'd been laying out on the dining room table and moved across the house to the front door. Opening it, he found Sidney Glass waiting for him.

'Hey Sidney,' he said.

'Hi, Henry. Is your mom about?'

'Sure,' the boy said, turning his head to shout across the house. 'Mom? It's Mr Glass.'

Regina appeared beside him a moment later, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She frowned when she saw her stand-in sheriff waiting for her.

'Henry,' she smiled down at her son. 'Will you go and start getting the food out of the oven? Make sure you wear the gloves. I'll be along in a second.'

The moment that he had disappeared back into the kitchen, Regina turned to Sidney with a dark frown etched across her face.

'What are you doing here?'

'I came to give you this,' Sidney said, holding out a thick brown envelope. 'I thought you might stop by the station today once Emma had left, but since you never did…'

Regina looked suspiciously down at it. 'What is it?'

'It's what you asked for,' Sidney said, frowning at the mayor's confusion. '…don't you remember?'

Reaching out a hand, Regina took the envelope from him and tore it open. She looked down at its contents: photos. Photos of Emma. Photos of Emma shuffling around town with her face peppered with bruises, her shoulders hunched, her eyes red. Photos of Emma having coffee with August and even photos of Emma sat in the sheriff station that very morning. Plus endless notes about her whereabouts, her conversations, and her appearance. The envelope was bulging with them and Regina resisted the urge to throw it back in Sidney's face.

'When did I ask you to do this?' she said in a low voice, letting the package dangle between her pinched thumb and forefinger. Sidney blinked.

'Um,' he stammered. 'After the sheriff election? You… you told me to keep you updated on her every move. I've been doing it for weeks.'

Regina opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. _Oh_, she realised with a sharp intake of breath. _That_.

That whole petty arrangement seemed years ago now. Since the incident in City Hall, she'd completely forgotten about her ludicrous decision to force Sidney to pretend to be Miss Swan's ally.

She realised with a jolt of what could have been guilt that Emma probably still thought that he was.

'I forgot,' she said slowly, looking back into the envelope. 'I just... I assumed that you'd stopped.'

'You never asked me to,' Sidney said anxiously. 'I just haven't had a chance to give them to you yet because I've been so busy filling in for Emma… if you had said, I wouldn't have kept—'

'It's alright Sidney. Calm down.' Regina pressed the envelope shut once more, holding it under one arm. 'How long will you be staying at the sheriff station, do you think?'

'I don't know,' he mumbled. 'She stuck around all day today, but she's going to need some time to get back to where she was. She struggled a lot.'

Regina frowned, although she didn't know what else she had expected.

'In that case…' she said, looking down at the floor between them. 'I would like you to keep doing this for me. But subtly – no taking photographs of her while she's sat three feet away from you. If she notices anything then she'll go right back to square one.'

Sidney blinked. 'Would that, umm… would that be a bad thing?'

Regina jumped. 'No. Of course not. But I want to get you back to the newspaper as soon as possible: if you have to keep covering for her, it's going to take even longer.'

'Of course,' he nodded, relieved. 'I'll be careful.'

'Thank you, Sidney.' Regina shot him her usual winning smile. It lacked some of its usual voltage, however. They both noticed.

The moment Sidney had left, Regina shut the front door and quickly walked into her office, unlocking the bottom drawer of her desk. She took one last look inside the envelope before she put it away, cold self-hatred creeping down her spine.

She told herself that she wasn't really _spying _on Miss Swan – not anymore. Sidney might still think that he was keeping an eye on her for the same old reasons, but Regina knew that that wasn't the case. She knew that the real reason she wanted to know about Emma's actions, as much as it hurt her to admit it, was because she was still worried about her. And since she couldn't realistically drop by the sheriff station every single day to check that she was okay – well. Then this arrangement would just have to do instead.

She locked the photos away, out of sight, where she hoped she'd never have to look at them again. The reminder of Emma's broken, injured body had come screaming back to her and she knew that her face was pale when she returned to the kitchen.

'Mom?' Henry asked, frowning. 'Are you okay?'

She forced herself to smile, shaking the image of Emma sat in Granny's, alone, with her head resting dejectedly in her hands, out of her mind.

'I'm fine, Henry,' she replied, resting her hand against the back of his hair. 'Thank you for taking care of all of this for me. Come on: let's go and eat, shall we?'

* * *

_Thanks for reading this chapter! There will be much more SQ interactions in chapter 9, I promise_

_Also, I'm **starsthatburn **over on tumblr if you want to come and say hi :)_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

'You're looking much better, Emma,' Sidney said, watching as the sheriff walked into the office the following Monday morning.

'Thanks,' she replied, not looking up. She still didn't feel quite right – her head was throbbing and she wasn't sure that she'd had more than two hours sleep over the entirety of the weekend, but even so: being back at work for the past week had helped her more than she was willing to admit. She felt just as scared as before, but more able to ignore it. It was the tiniest of victories, but a victory nonetheless.

She didn't notice that Sidney had started scribbling down notes in the pad on his desk.

'I thought you were meant to be back in the newspaper office today?' she asked after a moment, watching as he jumped in his chair.

'I am,' he replied, forcing a smile. 'But I thought I'd just come by here first, to check how you are.'

'That's… considerate,' Emma said slowly. 'But I'm okay. I've been back for a week now. I think I've got it.'

'Are you sure?' Sidney said, frowning. 'Because I can stick around.'

'You're meant to be back here with me tomorrow, aren't you?' Emma asked, referring to the new arrangement that she and the editor had decided on at the end of the previous week: just to help her ease back into things, he would spend the next two weeks working between both of the offices. After the next fortnight was over, she'd be back on her own once more.

'Yes...'

'Then it's okay. You can go back to your newspaper, and I'll see you tomorrow, won't I?'

'Yes, of course. But if you need me to stay, I—'

'I'm sure that Sheriff Swan would tell you if she felt that the station was about to crumble in your absence, Sidney.'

The voice came from the doorway. Both Emma and Sidney turned to look, even though the sound of the mayor's voice was far too distinctive to possibly be mistaken for anyone else's.

Sidney immediately flushed bright red. Emma struggled to suppress a laugh.

'Madame Mayor,' he stammered, looking back towards Emma for a moment. 'I was just telling—'

'I heard,' she interrupted, stepping into the room. 'Sidney, I cleared your new arrangement with Miss Swan because I agreed that it would be beneficial for the both of you: I didn't clear it because I wanted to pay you for working at the newspaper while you're actually hovering about the sheriff making it impossible for her to do her job.'

Sidney's mouth snapped shut at once. Regina stood coolly watching him, not meeting Emma's eye, waiting for him to gather up his things and leave.

She immediately noticed the old legal pad that he shoved into his bag, along with the scribbled notes across it. Emma, it would appear, did not.

'Right,' he said, turning his gaze back to the blonde woman. 'I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning then, Emma?'

'Yeah,' she replied, leaning against the glass frame of her office. 'See you tomorrow, Sidney.'

The man left, shuffling down the corridor with his head down. Regina didn't turn to watch him go.

'It's funny how many people feel the need to check up on me nowadays,' Emma said after a moment of silence, walking across to Sidney's desk in the centre of the room. Regina watched her gathering up the papers that he had left strewn across it, most of them undoubtedly filled in wrong.

'That's because people are concerned about you, Miss Swan.'

'I know,' Emma replied, standing upright with a sigh. She held the papers loosely in the crook of one elbow. 'Is that why you're here as well?'

Regina took another step into the room, trying not to look as nervous as she felt.

'Partially.' She offered the sheriff a small smile. 'You have to accept that people are going to be worried for a while. Especially when you still look like you haven't slept after nearly five weeks.'

Emma winced. Regina noticed that her hands were still trembling.

'I'm fine.'

Regina looked at her pointedly, but chose not to acknowledge this comment.

'Very well,' she said, walking further into the room until she was on the other side of the desk to Emma. 'And how was your first week back?'

'It was… okay,' Emma replied, looking down at the papers in her arm. 'I mean, it was good. Sort of. Luckily no one got hit by a car or tried to rob the supermarket or anything, because I'm not sure I would've been able to handle that just yet. But it was good to be back. It took my mind off of things.'

Regina couldn't help but smile with relief, her heartbeat finally slowing down a touch.

'I'm glad,' she said, sitting herself on the very edge of Sidney's desk. Emma awkwardly stood just to her left, trying to ignore the long stretch of leg that was now visible from underneath the mayor's skirt. 'Really. Part of me was worried that perhaps getting you to come back here might have only made things worse.'

'You were _doubting _yourself, Madame Mayor?' Emma asked without thinking. 'Jesus. Between that and you actually worrying about me, I'm starting to think that maybe you _aren't _the Evil Queen after all?'

Regina felt her jaw tighten for just a moment, even though she knew that Emma was joking. She forced herself to smile.

'Don't get too used to it,' she said slowly. 'I'm not planning on making a regular habit out of it.'

Emma laughed, putting the papers back down on the desk and pushing her hands into the pockets of her jeans.

'Well,' she said, shrugging. 'You can stop worrying now, I guess – the office isn't on fire and I'm clearly doing okay.'

'Clearly,' Regina said, taking in the sharp jut of Emma's collarbone from beneath her thin shirt. Emma rolled her eyes.

'Did you say there was another reason why you came here, Regina?'

At this, Regina's heart started fluttering once more. This was something that she knew she needed to do, something that she _knew _was the right thing – but she hadn't even told Henry that she was about to do it. Just in case Emma said no.

She took a deep breath. 'Yes. There was. I was… I was wondering if you…'

She was stammering. As she paused to collect her thoughts, Emma frowned. She had never seen the mayor like this before – she looked nervous. And uncomfortable. It didn't suit her.

'Regina?'

'I was _wondering_,' Regina said, forcing herself to sit upright, 'if you had any plans for dinner tonight?'

Emma blinked. Regina watched the confusion that flickered across her face, her green eyes narrowing. She inhaled through her teeth before she responded.

'Um,' she said slowly. 'No. Not exactly…'

'Good,' Regina said, plastering on her comfortably familiar mayoral smile. 'Because I'd like to invite you to have dinner with me and Henry.'

Something that was either relief or panic dropped like a stone in Emma's stomach. 'What?'

'He doesn't know yet,' Regina quickly added as she watched the colour draining from Emma's face. 'So if you feel like you can't, then you won't be letting him down. But… I really think you should consider it, Miss Swan. It's been over a month and he's miserable with missing you. You can't understand how hard it is to see him like that every day.'

Emma wetted her lips, frowning. 'Just to clarify – you're _inviting _me round your house? For dinner? With you?'

Internally begging to be granted some extra patience, Regina nodded. 'Yes, Miss Swan. That is what I am asking.'

Emma didn't respond for a few moments. Instead she took a step away from the mayor, walking around to the other side of the desk with her hands tugging through her hair. She reached the bars of the jail cell at the back of the room and leaned against them for a second, her eyes closed and her chest swelling. Regina rose to her feet and turned to watch her, unable to drag her eyes away from the deep scar that now ran down the blonde's temple.

'You're doing much better, Emma,' she said quietly. Almost pleadingly. 'He'll be relieved to see it. And… you can probably hug him again now, can't you?'

'Yeah,' Emma muttered, turning around to face her. She leant her back against those heavy bars, swallowing. 'Regina, look – I really want to see him. I do. I miss him every single day.'

'Then why—?'

'Because what if he hates me?' she choked out, shaking her head. 'Come on, Regina, I _suck _as a mother. I abandoned him once and now I've essentially abandoned him again. What if I show up at your doorstep and… and he asks me to leave again?'

A part of Regina's heart broke as she watched Emma trying so hard to force back tears. 'That's not going to happen.'

'How can you be sure?'

'Because I know him,' Regina said simply. 'He loves you. He misses you. And, for some reason, he's got it into his head that I miss you too.'

Emma blinked in surprise, and Regina rolled her eyes.

'He thinks that we should be friends,' the mayor clarified. 'So I can only imagine how happy it will make him if he opens the front door to find that I've actually taken him seriously in that suggestion.'

'You…' Emma faltered, swallowing. 'You want us to be friends?'

'Not especially,' Regina said, but without any bite to her voice. 'But even I have to admit that not having to resent and begrudge and hate you every day of my life can only be a good thing. It can get a little repetitive.'

A short laugh escaped from Emma's lips. 'Way to sell it to me, Madame Mayor.'

Regina raised one eyebrow. 'You know what I mean.'

'Yeah, I know,' Emma sighed, leaning her head back against the bars once more. 'Hating you can be really exhausting.'

There was a silence as the two women simply looked at one another, neither of them quite knowing what to say next. Eventually, Regina pushed her hands back into the pockets of her coat and cleared her throat.

'So,' she said, looking down at the floor. 'Dinner? Seven o'clock?'

A tiny smile, almost indiscernible, spread across Emma's face. 'Yeah. Okay.'

* * *

Regina heard the scream of delight that came from the hallway only two seconds after she asked Henry to go and see who was at the door. She smiled to herself, stirring the sauce that was simmering on the stove, before moving over to the nearest mirror to check that her hair was okay.

'Mom!' Henry hollered from the kitchen door, dragging a startled-looking Emma behind him. 'You invited Emma?!'

'Yes, I did,' Regina said, hardly having time to turn around before Henry catapulted himself across the room towards her. He wrapped his arms tightly around his mother's waist in a way that he hadn't done for months, and Regina froze, swallowing. Then Emma watched as she laced her own arms around his back, pulling him even closer towards her.

'Thank you,' he muttered into her stomach. She smiled down at him.

'You're welcome,' she said. When he let go of her, she looked up to where Emma was still stood uncomfortably in the doorway. 'Miss Swan.'

'Hi,' the sheriff said. For a moment Regina could only stare at the blonde curls that had been freshly washed, the black button-down shirt and tight blue jeans that had actually been ironed, and the black boots that for once weren't coated in dirt and grime. But then her attention was drawn to Emma's face: she looked exhausted, and dark circles still pooled beneath her pink-tinged eyes. But more distracting than that was the side of her face. Layer upon layer of make up had been caked across her ugly scar, and now Regina could hardly see it at all. Her face almost looked familiar, and it startled her.

'Thank you for coming,' Regina said after a moment, returning to the stove as Henry laced his fingers through the sheriff's. 'I hope pasta's okay?'

'Pasta's great,' Emma said. Neither one of them chose to acknowledge the fact that she probably wouldn't be eating any of it anyway.

'Come on, Emma,' Henry said excitedly, pulling the blonde further into the kitchen. 'We can help Mom with the food and then—'

'It's okay, Henry,' Regina interrupted, switching the stove off. 'Go and take Miss Swan into the dining room. I'll bring the food through in a moment.'

'Really?'

'Regina, please, let me help,' Emma said, taking a step forwards.

'No. You're our guest,' Regina said firmly, gesturing to the door. 'Off you go. I'll be in shortly.'

Henry immediately grabbed Emma's hand and tugged, pulling her through the door and into the next room. Emma threw an apologetic smile over her shoulder as she went, one that Regina was unable to return before she had disappeared into the hallway.

She turned back to the stove and swallowed, combing her fingers through her hair. _Right_, she thought, taking a deep breath. _Here we go._

* * *

Henry's eyes flickered back and forth across the table for the majority of the meal, watching his two mothers as they talked to one another. Part of him was waiting for the screaming and shouting to begin. The rest of him, however, could have cried with relief over the fact that it didn't actually seem like it was ever going to.

As he watched the way that Regina was leaning her elbow on the table, her wine glass held loosely in one hand as she listened to Emma telling a story about her life back in Boston, Henry realised something: August had been right. They _did _like each other, in some weird, screwed-up kind of way. His mother's dark eyes were shining as they watched the way that Emma's hands animatedly moved as she spoke, and it dawned on him that he hadn't seen her look that happy in a while. The same could be said for Emma – every now and then, just for a few seconds, flashes of the old sheriff would come blazing through the tall, barbed walls that she had built around herself over the last few weeks. In that moment, her green eyes wouldn't look quite so dull anymore.

The boy sat back in his chair, considering this. Considering what it would be like to have two mothers that didn't constantly bicker or try to outdo one another – but who actually liked one other. Who could actually call themselves friends.

'You've gone awfully quiet, Henry.' Regina's voice suddenly crept through his thoughtful haze, making him jump. He looked up to find both of the women looking at him. 'Is everything okay?'

He smiled. A real, genuine smile that made Regina's chest hurt. 'Yeah. Everything's great.'

Emma reached out for a moment, squeezing his hand beneath her own. 'It's been really good to see you again, kid.'

'You too,' he said, grinning. 'I'm glad that you're finally better.'

'Well. Maybe not quite better yet,' she said, swallowing. 'But I'm definitely getting there. And… coming round here, and seeing you, has definitely helped.'

She glanced across at Regina, only barely catching the tiny smile of relief that flickered across the mayor's face.

'I told you, Mom,' Henry said to Regina, not bothering to suppress his smug smile. 'I _told _you it was a good idea.'

Emma watched Regina curiously as a faint tinge of pink spread through her cheeks.

She looked down at the glass in her hand, nodding. 'I know, Henry,' she said. 'Sometimes I forget how smart you are.'

Emma took a sip of her own wine, not taking her eyes off of the mayor.

* * *

It was half past nine by the time that the table had been cleared and Regina had tidied up the kitchen. She walked back into the living room, leaning against the door frame. Henry and Emma were sat on the sofa, close together, talking in low voices. Regina caught the word 'queen'. She caught the word 'friend'.

'Henry,' Emma muttered to him. She was sitting cross-legged, facing her son. 'I've told you. I'm not fighting any battles here.'

'But it's _not _a battle,' Henry insisted, leaning forwards. 'Not anymore. Don't you see? That's why it's so perfect. Because you _like _each other.'

Emma sighed. 'Look. Henry—'

'Henry,' Regina said from the doorway, making them both jump. Her face was carefully expressionless. 'It's past your bed time.'

Henry blinked, shuffling away from Emma. The blonde's gaze remained pinned to the expanse of sofa that he left behind, her cheeks flushing.

Her son stood up and, moving to her side, wrapped his arms tightly around her. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes against his chest. They stayed like that for a while.

'It was really good to see you again, Emma,' he said. She finally released him, smiling up at him. He didn't notice that her green eyes had gone glassy.

'You too, kid,' she said softly. 'I'll see you again soon.'

'Can I come and see you at the station?'

'When?'

'Tomorrow?'

Emma swallowed, then glanced over at Regina. The mayor nodded.

'Sure,' Emma replied, squeezing his hand. 'I'll see you then.'

She watched as the boy crossed the room, stopping to wrap his arms so fiercely around Regina's narrow waist that she almost collapsed back against the door frame. Her hands gingerly found the back of his head, pulling him closer to her.

'Thanks,' he mumbled. She smiled down at him.

'You're welcome.'

As he charged up the stairs, Henry couldn't suppress the excited grin that had stitched its way across his lips. Grabbing the phone from its table in the hallway, he slipped into his bedroom and shut the door behind him, dialling August's number as he went.

The moment that he was out of the door Emma sighed, flopping backwards against the couch. Regina watched her from the doorway, her eyes on the groove running down her temple that was just starting to show through the make up that had been caked over the top of it.

When Emma looked up, the mayor was smiling at her.

'What?'

'You look like you could do with a drink,' Regina said. Sudden relief hit Emma in the stomach like a train.

'_God_. Yes please.'

'Come on,' Regina said, pushing herself away from the doorframe and gesturing across the hallway. Emma stood up, walking across to the mayor and diligently following her through the house. Regina opened the next door, standing aside to let Emma pass through into the small office that she'd been led into on her very first night in Storybrooke.

* * *

**_A/N: _**_I hope you're still enjoying, guys! Please do leave me reviews with any feedback you might have - I'll still be doing one shots for every 50th reviewer as well, so if you have any prompts that you want writing then try to get in there as the 200th :)_

_I'm **starsthatburn **over on tumblr if anyone wants to drop by and say hello! x_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

'Henry's certainly perked up,' Regina said as she walked over to her drinks cabinet. 'It's good to see him smiling again.'

Emma, sitting rather anxiously on the same couch that she'd been perched on the edge of the last time that she'd been in this room, nodded.

'Yeah. It is.'

There was a pause while Regina poured out two glasses of scotch. She took a deep breath before she spoke again. 'And you as well.'

'What?'

Returning to the sheriff, she held out a glass. Their fingers brushed momentarily as Emma reached out to take it.

Regina sat down on the sofa opposite her, swallowing against the dryness that had filled her mouth.

'It was good to see you smiling again.'

Emma blushed. 'Oh. Yeah. I guess… I guess tonight was one of my better nights. I really enjoyed it.' She offered the mayor a tiny smile, one that made the dark circles under her eyes all the more prominent but somehow lit up her face nonetheless. 'I really do appreciate you inviting me, Regina.'

'It's not a problem,' she replied, sipping her drink. 'I'm just glad that you came.'

'For Henry,' Emma clarified.

Regina nodded slowly. 'Yes. For Henry.'

That silence fell again: the one that told Regina that the woman sat before her wasn't quite the same woman as the one who had come storming into her office five weeks earlier. She frowned, watching as Emma tentatively sipped at her scotch.

As she did so the blonde's eyes closed, feeling the warm buzz of the alcohol already beginning to dull the edges of the room around her. Despite how hard she'd tried to eat the food that Regina had presented to her, she had failed. Her stomach remained resolutely empty and now the scotch wrapped its way around her like a warm blanket.

'I'm sorry, by the way,' Emma mumbled after a few moments. 'You know; that Henry's still on board the whole Evil Queen train. I thought he would've given up on that by now.'

Regina winced, the way that she always did. Then, forcing a gracious smile onto her lips, she nodded.

'It's alright,' she said. A tiny sigh escaped from her chest before she could stop it, and she forced herself to ignore the crumbling expression of guilt that immediately spread across the blonde's face. She was the one who was supposed to feel guilty here: not Emma.

'If it helps,' Emma said, taking another sip of her drink. 'I think he's changed his tactic.'

'He has?'

'Yeah,' Emma said, almost laughing. 'I think that he's decided that the whole 'final battle' thing might be overplaying it a bit. It seems that now my new job is just to be nice to you.'

A burst of laughter escaped from Regina's lips. 'Well. I think that the final battle scenario actually seems more viable, if I'm honest, Miss Swan. But I'm all ears – what does he expect that to achieve?'

'He seems to think that if the Evil Queen is no longer evil, her curse won't last very long,' Emma shrugged, smiling. 'And, given that he's apparently realised that you're not _actually_ evil – congratulations. Consider your curse effectually weakened.'

She expected the mayor to laugh in response. But, as Regina took this information in, she could only blink. At first the idea seemed completely ridiculous to her: nothing could break her curse. Rumplestiltskin had said so himself – _nothing can stop the darkness_.

And yet… no. She shook the thought from her mind, smiling to ease the confusion that had already appeared on the sheriff's face. It was ridiculous. It was sweet, but it was ridiculous.

'Well,' she said, raising her glass in a mock toast. 'I suppose I'll take my victories where I can get them.'

Just as Emma went to smile in response, she felt herself beginning to shudder under the weight of a yawn. It was one that she had been trying to stifle all evening, but now that the warmth of the scotch that she was drinking had numbed her muscles and relaxed her eyes, the damn thing tore through her jaw before she could stop it.

Regina blinked. 'Am I keeping you up, Miss Swan?' she asked. She didn't look annoyed, however. Something else was flashing across her face.

'No,' Emma immediately shook her head, putting the glass down on the table. 'God. No. I'm really sorry, that was so rude. I didn't mean to—'

'It's quite alright,' Regina said slowly, leaning forwards. '...I'm guessing that you're still not sleeping then?'

Emma merely shrugged. 'I've never been much of a sleeper anyway.'

'And yet I suspect that there might be _quite _a significant difference between sleeping fairly sporadically, and not sleeping at all.'

When Emma didn't respond, Regina folded her hands over in her lap and frowned.

'Emma,' she said in a low voice, her eyebrows creasing together. 'Other than… what happened. Is there something else that's bothering you?'

Two green eyes snapped up to look at her with more ferocity than Regina had imagined possible. She flinched under the weight of them, watching as the sheriff bristled with resentment.

'I'm _sorry_,' Emma drawled out, narrowing those laser-pointer eyes. 'Are you implying that what happened to me isn't _enough _to stop me from sleeping? Because, honestly Regina, I'd be more than willing to go outside right now and pick out thirty people at random and ask them what they think, because I'm at least ninety-nine per cent sure that they would all agree with me and say that being held at gunpoint and beaten down into the floor for the majority of a morning is probably sufficient reason to not _really_ feel up for taking a power nap every goddamn afternoon.'

For a moment Regina could only blink. Emma's cheeks had flushed deep red, her chest heaving as she struggled to control her breathing. It was the most that she'd said out loud about what had happened in that room since the moment that she'd walked out of its doors, and forcing herself to think about it again had obviously shaken her. The anger left her as quickly as it had come.

She collapsed back against the couch, covering her eyes with one hand.

'Oh, God,' she muttered, shaking her head. 'I'm sorry, Regina. I didn't mean to say any of that.'

'Don't apologise,' Regina said, taking a deep breath. She hoped that Emma wouldn't notice that her hands were trembling. 'It's my fault – it was a stupid question. I shouldn't have asked it.'

Emma pulled her hand away from her eyes, frowning. 'Are you apologising to me?'

'Yes… is that not okay?'

'It's fine,' Emma said, shaking her head. 'I'm just not exactly used to you doing that.'

Regina forced herself to smile. 'Consider it a part of my Evil Queen rehabilitation.'

Emma snorted, rolling her eyes back. 'Henry will be thrilled to hear that it's going so well.'

She settled back in her seat, obviously slightly calmer after her little outburst. Regina, however, still felt remarkably shaken. She had seen that flash in Emma's eyes; the shot of fear and then of self-loathing that she'd obviously spent the last five weeks trying so desperately to hide. Even now, only thirty seconds later, it was already buried beneath half-closed eyelids and clumped lashes. Regina bit at her bottom lip for a moment, gauging how reckless it would be to raise the question again. She decided that it was probably wisest not to.

But, then again, she had always had trouble listening to her own advice.

'I'm sorry for asking it,' Regina said quietly. Emma gave her a weak smile of acceptance. 'But… I have to ask it again. Because I _know_ that something else is bothering you.'

Emma's eyebrows knitted together. 'What makes you think that?'

'Experience,' the mayor said simply. 'Sleep doesn't come easily when being awake is already driving you to despair. It's like having two conflicting realities in your head, each one worse than the other. No one wants to sleep when they have no idea what horror they're going to end up dreaming about.'

Emma leaned forwards in her seat, frowning. 'I don't…'

'I'm not going to tell anyone,' Regina said, her eyes completely level. 'I just want to make sure that you're okay.'

'You sound like Archie.'

'You've been to see him?'

'No,' Emma admitted, her gaze falling to the coffee table sitting between them. 'I thought about it. But… you know he was _there_. In the meeting. He… he was the one who knocked Moe down. Who got him off of me. I can't imagine really wanting to speak to him about what a hard time _I'm _having when he's the one who ended up doing all of the rescuing.'

At this, Regina blinked. 'I'm sorry – you think that _Archie _was the hero in this scenario?'

'He certainly managed to save me,' Emma said flatly, picking up her drink and swallowing it in one bracing gulp. 'I only riled Moe up. I made everything so much worse. And then I probably would've died if Archie hadn't come along and taken him down and gotten him off of me. So, yeah, Regina – I'd say that he was the hero there.'

'Emma,' Regina stammered, shaking her head. 'How can you _think _that? You—'

'You weren't there,' Emma said simply. Her eyes were dangerously shiny, her hands trembling against her empty glass. 'Yeah, I took all of the blows. I stood up to him and I tried to talk him down and then I got him so angry at me that he threatened to shoot Sidney. I did nothing of any use, Regina. The only thing that he asked me to do was to call you and I couldn't even do that right.'

Regina flinched. 'You… _wanted_ me to come to the meeting?'

'Of course not,' Emma sighed, shaking her head. 'That's not what I meant – I've never, not once, regretted letting you know that something was wrong. If I'd thought that you were actually going to come I would've screamed at you not to and taken that bullet myself if it was the only thing that would have stopped you. It's just… you know. It's Henry.'

'Henry?' Regina frowned.

'Yeah. Henry still thinks I'm… the saviour,' Emma said, her voice utterly devoid of expression even as tears began to scratch at her eyes. 'He thinks I'm this hero, this knight in shining armour who's come along to save this town and everyone in it. But, in that meeting… he didn't see me there, Regina. My only job in there was to save about ten other people and I nearly killed every single one of them in the process. I would've died myself if Archie hadn't done all of the saving.'

'Emma—'

'And then I cried. I _cried_, Regina, in front of all of those people, sat on the floor with my hands shaking like some tragic little kid. They all saw, and they left me there. They didn't look at me like I was brave, or a hero, or anybody's saviour. They looked at me with pity, because I was pathetic and had no idea what I was doing, and I couldn't even make a simple phone call right.'

The words had dribbled from Emma's lips in a stream of pain and scotch and, without thinking about what she was doing, Regina suddenly got up from her seat and moved over to the space on the sofa next to her. Emma looked round at her, her face already crumpling. She was trying so desperately hard not to cry that it was all Regina could do not to wrap her arms around her and hold her close, the same way that she had done with their son a hundred times before.

Instead, she reached out and squeezed her shaking hand. It was cold.

'You need to listen to me now, Miss Swan,' she said in a low voice, forcing Emma to look up and meet her gaze. 'Because I'm about to be nice to you, and it may not ever happen again.'

A waterlogged choking sound came from deep within Emma's throat, one that almost resembled laughter.

'Fine,' she said, scrubbing a hand beneath her eyes. 'Go on.'

'You're right,' Regina said, nodding. 'I wasn't there. And I can't thank god enough for that fact, because I wouldn't have been able to do _half _of what you did: I wouldn't have been able to defend a room full of people that I didn't know, nor would I have been able to take every single one of Moe's blows without so much as a whimper of complaint even five weeks later. And I especially wouldn't have been able to call a woman to whom I owed absolutely nothing, watching as a gun was pointed at one of the only men in that room that I actually cared about, and then risked my own life by letting that woman know that things were definitely, _definitely _not okay. Archie may have saved you, Emma, but you don't quite realise what _you_ did – you saved me. You protected me for reasons that I will never quite understand and you protected every single other person in that room. Because _that _is the saviour that Henry sees – that's the kind of hero that you are. You are one who takes absolutely zero shit from a bully, Miss Swan. It's a trait that's only ever annoyed me because that is the exact reason why we've always locked horns so badly. Because you never took any of my shit either.'

After she had finished speaking, Regina finally let go of Emma's hand. The sheriff had watched her the whole while, utterly speechless with her green eyes still gleaming with tears.

Eventually, she shook her head. 'Did you just swear?'

Regina rolled her eyes. 'Really? _That _is what you are taking away from this conversation?'

'No,' Emma laughed slightly, wiping her eyes. 'I'm just shocked. That was the easiest point to try and address first.'

Regina smiled tightly, crossing her legs over as she waited for a proper response.

For a few moments Emma just stared down at her knees, biting her lip. Thoughts were crashing about in her head and absolutely none of them made any sense. She shook her head to try and silence them, all the while entirely too aware of the warmth on her hand from where Regina had been holding it and the steady burn of the set of dark brown eyes that were closely watching her.

'Thank you,' she eventually said. It took every ounce of strength that she possessed, but she forced herself to look up as she did so. 'I don't really know what else to say. I just… thank you.'

'It's the truth,' Regina said quietly.

'Some of it,' Emma shrugged. 'You put quite a spin on it though.'

'It was the only compliment that I'm ever going to give you, Miss Swan. It had to be good.'

Yet again, Emma found herself laughing. She rolled her eyes, just about catching the tiny, genuine smile that tugged at the corners of the mayor's mouth.

And then she caught sight of the clock. She flinched.

'Oh,' she said with a groan. 'I should probably get going. I promised Mary Margaret I wouldn't be home too late.'

'She sounds like your mother,' Regina said before she could stop herself. She almost bit her tongue off the moment the words had passed through her lips, waiting with cold dread for Emma to pick up on this comment.

Mercifully, however, she seemed to miss it altogether.

'She's still worried about me,' Emma said, slowly standing up. 'I think she just doesn't want me running into any bars and then ending up comatose under the toll bridge.'

Regina smiled, standing up to join her. 'Then whatever you do, please don't tell her that I gave you scotch. I'm not fooled by that demure schoolteacher exterior for a moment – I'd imagine that she could pack quite a solid punch.'

'You don't say,' Emma snorted to herself, digging about in her pocket for her keys. As she did so, however, she found herself swaying slightly. She lurched sideways into the couch, the numbness of her teeth suddenly becoming startlingly apparent. 'Oh. Right.'

'And on an empty stomach,' Regina rolled her eyes, walking over to the door. 'Do you want me to call you a cab, Miss Swan?'

'No, I'm alright,' Emma replied, following the mayor into the hallway. 'I can walk, it's not far.'

'Are you sure?' Regina asked doubtfully. 'I can walk with you if you like?'

'And leave Henry alone again? Don't worry. I'll be fine.'

They had reached the front door. With her hand on the door knob, Regina worriedly eyed the hollowness beneath Emma's eyes and the now permanent shaking of her hands. But she forced herself to nod.

'Okay,' she said slowly. 'If you insist.'

She opened the door and Emma stepped outside, turning back to face her before she walked down the path. There was a small but entirely genuine smile on her face as she spoke.

'Thank you again,' she said quietly, tucking her mess of blonde curls behind one ear. 'For inviting me. And for… you know. What you said.'

'It's quite alright,' Regina said, leaning one shoulder against the door. 'I did mean it. All of it.'

Emma nodded, swallowing. 'I know.'

There was a beat, and Emma found her eyes locking firmly onto Regina's dark ones. Something caught in her throat. She could see the concern in the mayor's face, tinged with something utterly unfamiliar. For a split second it almost looked like longing. But then it disappeared, brushed away by the familiar cool expression of a mayor who didn't long after anyone.

'I'll come and get my car tomorrow morning,' Emma said.

'That's fine,' Regina replied, smiling at her. 'Goodnight, Miss Swan.'

'Goodnight, Madame Mayor.'

And Emma finally forced herself to turn away, walking down the path and feeling a sad lump rising in her throat when she heard the front door shutting behind her.

With the light of the hallway no longer shining across the front yard, the path was dark. Emma swallowed, her anxiety now so familiar to her that she almost didn't register it, before she zipped up her jacket and forced herself to hit the sidewalk with her head down. The street was deserted. With her thumbs looped through the pockets of her jeans, she took a few steps into the darkness. It was only the faint rustle of bushes nearby that caused her to look up again.

She froze.

The shadow of a man was stood barely ten feet away, tall and completely still and looking straight at her. There was a beat where Emma's body simply stopped working; her lungs drying up and her muscles turning to lead. The shadow stepped forwards. Half a second later Emma registered the cold, screaming fear that rocketed through her body, sending her tumbling backwards into the nearest tree with a thud.

Her shoulder knocked against the trunk, her boots skidding over the exposed roots, and then she was on the floor, the shadow still standing ahead of her. It was moving closer. Her hand reached instinctively for her belt, fumbling in the pitch darkness for her gun. With a stone-drop of panic in her stomach, she realised that she didn't have it with her. The man shuffled closer. Without thought, an agonised scream ripped forth from Emma's lungs, tearing down the deserted street. As it echoed the man stopped moving, his head looking wildly around to see who had heard it. He got his answer when the mayor's front door opened once more, bright light streaming across the yard and lighting up the image of the sheriff, sprawled across the floor with tears streaming down her face, like a Times Square billboard.

Regina tore down the path without a moment's hesitation, running towards Emma even as her heels slipped across the damp bricks. She reached the sheriff's side and crouched down, trembling hands reaching out to calm her down. It was then that she heard the panicked cough from ahead of her and looked up to see the man who was stood before them. A hiss of annoyance escaped from between her teeth.

'_Sidney_,' she barked, her voice seething with venom. 'What the _hell _are you doing here?'

Wrapped up in his beige trench coat and hat, a camera clasped between his hands, he simply shook his head in response. No words came. His dark eyes fell back to the blonde woman on the floor before him, mud smeared up her jeans and hot, terrified tears still slick across her cheeks. She was shaking so violently that he began to panic. He took a tentative step forwards, one hand outstretched. He was immediately cut off by the snarl of the mayor's voice.

'Don't you _dare_,' she said, shaking her head. She reached forwards, helping Emma to sit up. 'Get the hell off of my path, Sidney. _Now_.'

He opened his mouth to respond. 'I'm so sorry, I—'

'_Go!_' Regina all but screamed. Sidney barely flinched before he turned on his heel and ran, the camera clutched pathetically to his chest.

Regina turned back to Emma, sliding her arm around her waist like she had done on another night painfully similar to this. Forcing her to stand up, she led the trembling, sobbing woman back into her house. As she guided her into the living room, she didn't notice the small boy who was sat nervously at the top of the stairs.

'Sit down,' Regina said, gently steering Emma over to the sofa. In the bleak light of the house she couldn't quite believe how pale the sheriff was: her skin was sickly and translucent, the scar on her temple now obvious and cutting a trench through the clammy flesh. 'I'm going to get you some water. Wait here.'

She paced across the house and into the kitchen, returning moments later to find Emma leaning forwards with her head buried in her hands. Regina sat down close by her side, holding out the glass. 'Here.'

A violently shaking hand reached out to take it. 'Thanks.'

Silence fell, only sporadically interrupted by the clink of Emma's teeth against the glass and the gargling sound of her holding back sobs that came from somewhere deep within her throat.

The question that eventually came was one that Regina had been silently pleading with her not to ask.

'What was he _doing _here?'

It had almost been rhetorical. The silence that followed it, however, was heavy and charged with something that felt dangerously close to guilt. Opening her glassy eyes, Emma looked suspiciously round at the woman sat beside her.

'Regina?' she asked slowly, putting down the glass. '…what was he doing here?'

The mayor opened her mouth to reply – to lie, to say that she didn't know; she wasn't sure which. But nothing came. Her dry throat cracked and she realised with a drop of her stomach that she could no longer hold Emma's questioning gaze.

The moment that her eyes fell back down to the carpet, Emma inched away from her on the couch.

'He…' she choked out, shaking her head. 'He had a _camera_, Regina.'

Regina's bottom lip was trembling as she opened her mouth once more, trying to force words out. Any words. But still nothing came, and Emma's whole body thudded back against the couch.

_No_, her eyes shut momentarily. _There's no way_.

'Regina,' she said, hating herself for how pleading she sounded. 'Please, _please _tell me that he wasn't spying on me. Please.'

But Regina just looked up with an expression that begged for forgiveness before the words had even formed on her tongue. Emma's face collapsed. She had jumped to her feet and was tearing towards the closed door a moment later.

'No,' Regina stammered, following her and grabbing hold of her wrist. 'No, Emma, wait – please. I can explain.'

'Get off of me,' Emma tried to put away, realising with a rising panic that the mayor was a lot stronger than she'd ever given her credit for. She reached for the door handle with her other hand, missing it by an inch as Regina tugged her backwards.

'I can explain,' she whimpered. Her dark eyes were swimming, scattering across Emma's face as she tried desperately to read her expression. 'He… after the sheriff's election, I had him keep an eye on you… I didn't trust you and—'

'You didn't trust _me?!_' Emma exploded. Her breath was catching in her lungs and every word was painful, struggling to form and blocking her throat. She couldn't inhale properly. The air in that room was poisonous and she needed to be out of it.

'But since what happened, Emma, it wasn't _like _that – I was worried about you and I realised that he was still following you so I thought—'

'You thought what? _What_, Regina? That you could just use your little puppet as a fucking informer on me? _What_?'

The sheriff was looking at her with an expression that nearly destroyed her. Her green eyes, enormous and still spilling over with tears, wordlessly screamed the one thing that Regina did not want to hear: _I thought that I could trust you_.

'I just needed to make sure that you were okay,' Regina said, still clinging onto Emma's arm.

'Then _ask!_' Emma's voice was verging on hysterical now. She finally managed to tug her wrist free of Regina's grip but she didn't reach for the door again. Her breathing had become stilted and the room was crumbling beneath her feet, but she forced herself to keep speaking. 'That's what people _do_, Regina! You even managed to do it yourself a couple of times, so why the _hell _would you think that something like this would be okay?'

'I didn't… I wasn't thinking,' Regina shook her head, her face collapsing. 'Emma, please. I was trying to help you. I just wanted to know that you were okay.'

'Well, guess what, Madame Mayor?' Emma hissed, throwing the door open and storming out into the hallway. 'I'm _not _okay. I've never been less okay. You told me once that the world isn't all teeth and claws, and, as it turns out, you fucking lied – the world is nothing _but_ teeth and claws and shadows and people that you can't trust. My world is one big fucking nightmare with the goddamn lights switched off, and I'm not okay. I don't know how to _be _okay anymore. My light switch has fallen off of the wall and you just smashed it beneath your stupid fucking heels.'

She had reached the front door, pulling it open more vigorously than she'd intended and slamming it so hard behind her that the surrounding windows shook in their frames. As she retreated down the path the house fell oddly silent.

Stood in the middle of the hallway, Regina's hands tugged at the bottoms of her sleeves. She waited for the cold feeling of absolute self-loathing to leave her. The pathetic tears that had started to dribble down her cheeks let her know that it wasn't going anywhere. She turned and walked into her office, taking a deep breath before closing the door behind her with a click.

At the top of the stairs, Henry sat with his forehead resting between two of the banister rails. The rest of the evening disappeared from his memory, replaced only by the slamming of doors and Emma's terrified, utterly betrayed screaming. He realised after a moment that he could hear crying from his mother's office, but he didn't go down. Not because he didn't want to see her: because he knew without question that she wouldn't be able to face him.

* * *

_**A/N: **so I realise that a lot of you are going to HATE me for what I just did here, but please keep your toys in the pram ;) it's all under control, I promise! _

_Come and say hello on tumblr if you're got one, I love to hear from you lot :) I'm **starsthatburn **over there as well._

_Also this is REDONKULOUSLY close to getting its 200th review - I'll be doing another one-shot for whoever gets it so if you have any ideas then throw them at me! _


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N: **Sorry for the slight delay in this chapter guys - I am trying to update this fic every Tuesday and Saturday at the moment, but I had a hen party this weekend so I've been face-down hungover for the last 48 hours... __I hope you like it now that it's finally up!_

_Also, this is getting really close to its 250th review - if you have a prompt for a one shot that you want writing then get in there as the 250th reviewer and I'll do it for you :) xx_

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

The first thing that Emma noticed when she walked into the sheriff station was the light: the room was awash with a strange blue-ish glow, the walls gleaming silver. Light was pouring in through the windows and she had to squint at first, shielding her eyes with one hand to let them adjust.

The second thing that she noticed was that all of the furniture had gone.

A sudden groan came from the cell in the far corner of the room and, tugging down on the sleeves of her jacket, Emma found herself crossing over to it. The door was open, and a figure was hunched on the floor. Emma took a deep breath and stepped inside the room, reaching out a hand towards the figure of a man who was curled up in the centre of the cell like a child who had tired himself out from crying. The moment that her fingers touched his back, the door of the cell slammed shut behind her.

She spun on the spot, flinching against the silvery-blue light that was steadily growing brighter. The empty room was metallic, and it glinted at her. Emma wrapped her fingers around the bars of the cell, shaking them, praying for the door to open. She could hear the man behind her getting up even over the sound of her own heartbeat crashing in her ears.

Through the bright light, a figure entered the room. Emma squinted at it, trying to make out any features, but the room was too bright and all she could see was the blurred edges of someone who had already stopped moving any closer. When she tried to scream out for help only a strangled moan came from her throat.

A click came from behind her. Emma's breath hitched in her chest, and a moment later she felt something cold being pressed against the back of her skull.

She could hear his heavy breathing now, and she could feel the weight of his body slowly beginning to press against her back. As she was forced up against the door, the metal bars digging into her forehead, she peered back into the rest of the station to see if that person was coming to help her.

They weren't.

Moe took hold of Emma's hair with one hot, sticky hand and pushed it to one side, letting his breath cascade down upon her neck. His body pressed more firmly against hers, crushing her chest against the metal bars of the jail cell. A sob choked from her throat.

'Please. Don't.'

She sounded pathetic and she could feel Moe laughing at her for it. His clammy hand slipped around her neck, pulling her back against him, his breath on her ear.

'No,' she whispered, her voice cracking the moment that the gun was pushed beneath her chin. '_Please_.'

The figure on the other side of the bars stood completely still, watching. Unmoving. Emma squeezed her eyes shut, gripping her fingers more tightly around the bars. She swallowed. It sounded like a gunshot.

* * *

She shot upright in bed, her thin t-shirt clinging to the sweat that was slicked across her body. The room was dark. Violently trembling hands reached up, grabbing at her own throat and feeling for bruises: her skin was damp and hot enough to burn her, but it was clear.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Emma reached over to her nightstand and switched on the light. The clock read 4:06am. She hadn't remembered falling asleep – she'd staggered into the apartment after running home from the mayor's house, tears still dribbling down her cheeks, and had necked a full glass of whiskey so quickly that it had made her throat burn. The fact that she'd made it into bed at all was nothing short of a miracle.

She ran both of her hands through her damp hair, twisting it into a long rope and lifting it away from her neck. _There's no air in here_. She pushed herself to her knees, tearing the window open and sticking her head outside. _It's poisonous. I can't breathe._

The rest of the apartment remained silent. Apparently, she hadn't screamed.

* * *

August shook his head at the boy sat in front of him.

'It doesn't sound good, buddy.'

'We have to fix it!' Henry said desperately, his hands thudding down on the table. 'They were doing so well! They were _happy_. Now it's all ruined and we need to make it better again.'

'It's not that simple, Henry,' August sighed, rubbing his fingers over the bridge of his nose. He'd woken up with pain shooting through his leg that morning, and the longer it had lasted, the more the rest of him had started to ache. 'What your mom did… God, it was really, _really _dumb. I'm sure she had good intentions and all, but all she really managed to do was reaffirm for Emma that she's been absolutely right to have trust issues a mile high for the past twenty-eight years. I don't know how she's going to recover from that again.'

'You mean, ever?' Henry asked, his face collapsing. August couldn't bring himself to lie to him.

'I don't know, kid. Possibly not.'

'But, they have to be friends,' Henry shook his head. 'You _said _so. It would make them both happy and then things would get better again. And then… the _curse_.'

The final word was weighed down with such frustration that he slumped down in his seat, his hair tumbling into his eyes.

August took a deep breath. He suspected that he'd probably live to regret what he was about to do.

'Henry,' he said, leaning forwards. 'It _will _work.'

'What? Them being friends?'

'That,' August said, his voice low even in the mostly empty diner. 'And the other thing.'

There was a pause. Henry slowly leaned forwards against the table, his eyes narrowing. 'The… curse?'

August nodded.

'You _believe _me?'

'I don't have to believe you,' August replied, his lips curving upwards into a faint smile. 'Because I _know_.'

'How?'

August's blue eyes flicked downwards, signalling for Henry to look under the table. The boy threw himself onto his side, laying down on the booth's cushion with his head hanging upside down. The moment that August tugged at the bottom of his jeans, coaxing the fabric up until an inch of glowing, cracking wood was visible, he heard the thud of Henry's head hitting the underside of the table.

'Are you okay?' he asked as the boy returned to the upright position. He didn't even seem to have noticed the bump – his hazel eyes were flashing with excitement.

'You're Pinocchio!' he hissed under his breath, casting a look around the room. 'I was right – I was right _all along_?'

'You're a smart kid, Henry – I don't know why you're so surprised.'

The boy could only grin in response. _It was true. It was all true_.

And then his face crumbled as quickly as it had lit up – if he'd been right about the curse, then he was also right about the person who had cast it.

'My mom.'

August immediately leaned forwards, folding his arms over. 'Look, Henry – have you ever heard the expression "don't believe everything you read"?'

'...I thought it was "hear"?'

'Yeah, well. The point still stands,' August waved a hand in the air. 'Your book may tell you all about the Evil Queen and Snow White and this awful, wicked curse that was cast… but that doesn't mean you're getting the whole story.'

'What do you mean?'

'Your mom,' August said simply. 'You know her better than anyone – so tell me. Is she evil? I mean, _really _– is she the Evil Queen?'

Henry scrunched up his face, considering this. It was harder to come up with an answer than he would have anticipated.

'I… thought she was.' He said after a moment. 'She used to act like it. But recently… I'm not so sure. She's stopped being so mean and she's stopped being so angry. She's started to remind me of what she used to be like when I was little.'

'Okay. But even before that – for the past year or two, when things have been really difficult: has she really been _evil_? Or has she just been… challenging?'

Henry frowned. '…she killed Graham.'

'You can't prove that, Henry.'

The boy threw him a derisive look that reminded August so much of Emma that he could only laugh in response.

'Okay,' he was forced to admit. 'We'll call that a grey area. The point is – maybe the Evil Queen isn't actually real. Maybe she's just a character, one dressed up and drawn to look evil. There had to be a story behind it, one that whoever wrote this book didn't get to hear about. Because, you know, I always say that evil isn't born: it's made. Which to me means that it can be unmade just as easily.'

Henry blinked, just before the shadow of a smile passed over his lips. Everything that August was saying had confirmed the very thought that he had been clinging onto for the past few weeks. 'You think that if she and Emma become friends, she'll become less evil. And if we weaken the queen, we'll weaken the curse.'

'Exactly.'

'And will that break it?'

'Highly doubtful,' August admitted. 'This curse is powerful, Henry. More powerful than I can explain – but all curses _can _be broken, which means that they can also be broken down. And I think that's our best bet right now.'

'How come?'

'Remember, Emma's the one who has to break this, kiddo,' August sighed. 'And, right now? _She's_ broken. We haven't got a chance of getting her to even believe us, let alone doing anything about it. But if the curse gets _weaker_ – we've both seen what happens there. Traces of the Enchanted Forest come creeping back into Storybrooke and sooner or later she'll be forced to start seeing it for herself. And _then _she'll believe us when we tell her what she needs to do.'

Henry nodded, mulling this over. 'Make the Evil Queen less evil,' he muttered to himself. 'Make the curse less powerful.'

'You've got it.'

'But is that even possible now?' Henry asked, sighing. 'After what happened last night, Emma's probably worse than ever. She's never going to want to be friends with my mom after that.'

'Yeah. Maybe,' August said slowly, thinking back to when he'd seen the pair of them walking down Main Street side by side. 'Or maybe Emma can be more forgiving than we realise.'

Henry snorted, shaking his head. 'I wouldn't be so sure about that.'

'Do I smell a wager?' August grinned.

'I don't have any money, August, I'm _ten_.'

'Who said anything about money? The only stake here is pride, my friend.'

Henry rolled his eyes, laughing as he pulled his backpack onto his shoulders. 'I have to get to school.'

'Nice; change the subject. Very smooth.'

'You're so weird,' Henry said, sliding out of the booth. As he went to leave the diner, however, he turned back with a curious expression on his face. 'So, does your nose really grow?'

August simply tapped the side of it. 'Like I said, kid: don't believe everything you read.'

'That's not the expression.'

'Whatever. The point still stands.'

* * *

Emma heard a crack of wood from somewhere within her desk as she slammed the top drawer shut, but it still wasn't quite loud enough to satisfy her. So far that morning she had already smashed her _I love Boston _mug and dented one of the filing cabinets; both of which she would be willing to swear under oath were accidents. Wrecking her desk seemed like the next logical step – it was, therefore, a bitter disappointment to find that it was much sturdier than she'd always assumed.

Hooking her chair out from underneath the desk with the toe of her shoe, she collapsed into it and shut her eyes. The now familiar throbbing in her temples had multiplied threefold overnight, and she wasn't sure whether she had Regina to blame for that or rather her own decision to drink a full glass of single malt on an empty stomach. In either case, the pressure building up inside her skull had started to push against her eyes and they were already exhausted. It was barely 9 a.m. and she was already desperate to go home.

Without opening her eyes she gave the bottom drawer of the desk another kick for good measure, listening to the satisfying thud of some part somewhere inside it snapping off and dropping to the floor.

'You know: the city only pays Marco for general repairs and maintenance.' Emma's heart ground to a standstill as an all too familiar voice floated in from the doorway. 'I'm not _exactly _sure that this is covered by that.'

Emma's eyes remained firmly shut, but she covered them with one hand for good measure.

'This may come as a surprise to you,' she ground out through clenched teeth. 'But I _really _do not feel like talking to you today, Madame Mayor.'

She heard the clicking of heels against linoleum as Regina took three tentative steps into the room. Emma let out a strangled moan, throwing her head back so that it hung over the back of her chair. There was a scraping sound as the mayor pulled out the seat opposite her, sitting herself down in it without being asked.

'Regina,' Emma snapped, her eyes still closed. 'Go. _Away_.'

'I understand that you're upset,' Regina said, her voice unusually quiet. 'But I just want you to hear me out. Please.'

Emma frowned, curiously peeking round from behind her fingers: the mayor didn't say 'please'. Ever.

Regina was sat across the desk from her, her knees firmly pressed together and her purse clutched in her lap. She wore her usual slash of red lipstick, but it had already begun to fade from the amount of times that she had nervously licked her lips since leaving her home that morning. Everything else about her looked quite normal – infuriatingly so. And yet when she spoke her voice cracked, and her dark eyes couldn't meet Emma's green ones with the same defiant intensity that they normally did.

'Miss Swan…' she started, swallowing. 'Look. Obviously I owe you an explanation.'

'And obviously your hearing isn't as good as it once was,' Emma snapped, folding her arms across her chest. 'I just asked you to leave. I don't want to hear any excuses from you.'

'It's not an excuse,' Regina said, shaking her head. 'Well. I mean, I suppose it is. But it's not—'

'_Regina,_' Emma rolled her eyes. '_Jesus_. I've just asked you to leave_. Twice_. I know you have a tendency to do whatever the hell you like and not really think about what effect it's going to have on the people around you, but just for once can you please, _please _just do as I ask and leave me alone?'

'I will,' Regina said, pulling a large brown envelope from her purse. 'I promise. But first I want you to take this.'

Emma gritted her teeth together, wondering momentarily whether she would be able to get away with hitting the mayor over the head with the nearest blunt object if she claimed that it was in self-defence. She couldn't imagine that anyone in the town would raise too many objections to it. But before she could inflict any serious harm, curiosity got the better of her, as it always did. She grudgingly reached out to take the envelope from between the mayor's fingers.

She opened it, and then she flinched: all she needed to see was the first photo; an obtrusively close shot of the angry bruises that had been clawing at her face a few weeks before, before she knew that she absolutely did not want to look any further.

'They're all there,' Regina said, swallowing. 'I wanted you to know that I wasn't planning on doing anything with them.'

'Regina, I could not give a goddamn inch about _why_ you—'

'No, please, Emma – let me explain.' The desperation in her voice stunned Emma into silence. She fell back in her chair, glaring at the woman sat before her. Regina took a deep breath before she spoke again.

'Sidney was following you,' she reluctantly admitted. Even though she already knew this, the sheriff winced. 'Ever since the election… I wanted to be sure that you were doing your job, and I also wanted to be sure that I didn't have reason to be any more suspicious of you than I already was. You'll be pleased to hear, he didn't come up with very much.' She attempted a smile, but Emma's face remained cold.

Regina sighed. 'When the incident with Moe happened… I completely forgot about it all. I was too busy being worried about you to be suspicious of you, and then the more time I spent with you the more I realised that… that I had absolutely no _reason _to be wary of you. And not just because you were broken, and too scared to do anything to hurt me – but because I realised that you simply weren't going to hurt me. Because, as annoying as I find you, it turns out that we're actually quite similar, Miss Swan.'

'No, we are not,' Emma snarled.

Regina blinked. 'I'm sorry?'

'You can dress it up any way you like,' Emma said, leaning forwards against the desk. Her face was burning with anger, but her eyes didn't flash with their usual fire – they had dimmed again. They were tired. Regina and Sidney had sucked the soul clean out of them and the mayor couldn't bear to look into them for a moment longer than she had to. 'But the fact is, Madame Mayor, that you had someone follow me around town for _weeks,_ invading my privacy and taking notes on every single goddamn thing that I did, just so you could keep a little record of it all for your own depraved pleasure. And you _knew_… you knew how badly that would affect me if I found out. You of all people would have known that something like that would have just—'

'I know,' Regina interrupted, unable to take the look of absolute betrayal that was carved into the lines on the sheriff's face any more. 'I know, Emma. But I promise you, I didn't realise that he was still following you – I just assumed he'd taken the initiative to stop after what had happened to you. I only found out when he showed up at my house with the photos last week, and I was going to tell him to stop. But…'

Her sentence wisped off into nothing. Emma frowned. '_But?_'

Regina took a deep breath, not looking up from the clenched fists resting in her lap. 'But I realised that the time would probably come where you didn't need my help anymore. Where you'd go about your life on your own. And I had to be sure that you were still okay. I… I couldn't just let you be all alone again.'

Emma's eyes narrowed. 'So you thought that you'd just have someone stalk me?'

'If it meant that I could check that you were doing okay, then yes.' Regina glanced up, her eyebrows knitted together. 'If that's what it took… then yes.'

A loaded silence fell through the room. Emma's eyes flickered across the mayor's face, trying to gauge just how much of this confession had come from guilt and how much of it was a result of her actually giving a damn about her. She jumped when she realised that the dark eyes that were watching her were glossy, almost on the brink of tears. Regina was biting at her bottom lip, the red lipstick now virtually gone, waiting for her response.

Emma opened her mouth to reply. But then her eyes fell back down to the envelope that was still clutched in her hands.

'Regina,' she said in a low voice, one that would have passed for gentle had it not been for the angry lines around her mouth. '…you really don't know how to be around other people. Do you?'

The question made Regina flinch. Her mouth had gone dry.

'I…'

'The bottom line is, regardless of your reasons,' Emma sucked in a breath through her teeth, 'that you tricked me.'

'I did not—'

'You did.' Emma's voice cracked, and she pushed the envelope away from her. 'You made me believe that Sidney was my friend. You let me believe that I could trust him. And… God, Regina. Was _that_ why he suddenly turned up at the meeting that day? Was he spying on me then, too?'

Regina didn't respond. Emma collapsed back in her chair once more, her chest suddenly hurting.

'I need you to go now.'

'No, Emma—'

'Regina, _please_,' Emma's voice was heavy as she shut her eyes again. 'You need to _stop_ this. You can't just manipulate everyone around you in the hopes of getting what you want. These past few weeks… Jesus, you've been _amazing_. You do realise that, don't you? And it wasn't because you were tricking me or lying to me or taking pity on me. It was because you were being _nice_ to me. You were being human, you were being kind, and it… it made me realise that…'

She faltered, swallowing. Regina immediately frowned.

'It made you realise what?'

The sheriff sighed, then opened her eyes to meet the mayor's once more. 'Nothing. It doesn't matter.' She reached out, picked up the envelope, and thrust it back across the desk. 'Just take them and go.'

'Emma—'

'I don't want them.' Emma pushed the package further forwards until it tipped over into Regina's lap. 'Do what you want with them. Have Sidney publish them in the newspaper if that was your little plan all along. Make a collage out of them and wallpaper your fucking house. I don't _care_. Just get them away from me.'

Leaning her elbows on the edge of the desk, Emma bent forwards and rested her head in her hands. Regina could only stare at her, the envelope clutched uselessly between her fingers.

The sheriff's voice, tiny and exhausted, came again a few seconds later. 'Please go.'

Swallowing down the hard lump at the back of her throat, Regina forced herself to stand up. More than anything in the world she longed to speak out, to throw one of her usual defensive, catty remarks back at the sheriff just to let her know that she hadn't rattled her. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, nothing came to her. The woman sat before her radiated with unfathomable amounts of betrayal, and there was nothing that Regina could say that was going to make either of them feel any better.

She forced the envelope back into her purse and tripped out of the door, not looking back.

* * *

Her office felt oddly quiet that afternoon. People were bustling around City Hall as usual, her phone kept ringing, and her inbox kept demanding her attention; yet Regina's head was filled with only the dull roar of complete silence. She quickly found that her eyes were struggling to focus on anything other than the brown envelope that was resting in front of her.

It was sat between her and her keyboard for a full hour before she could bring herself to open it. All of the photos were in there: every single one, just like she'd promised. Except now, in the cold light of day, she couldn't really remember what she had wanted with them in the first place. Looking down at the evidence of Emma's battered face was already too painful for her to bear and suddenly her whole endeavour regarding Sidney just seemed ridiculous: what _had _she been thinking? She had known what this would do to Emma if she'd found out, and yet she'd done it anyway. She'd done it anyway because her desire to know everything and to be everywhere was apparently far more important to her than anything else.

Regina threw the photos down onto the desk and shut her eyes, letting out a sigh. When she rested her forehead against her interlaced fingers, they were cold. Her heart was hammering against the inside of her chest and she couldn't quite explain why.

If she had let herself think about it Regina would have realised that, for the last few weeks, there had been absolutely nothing else on her mind. What had initially started off as a niggling guilt had at some point morphed into some kind of compassion – but now it had reached the stage where she couldn't tell what it was at all. She couldn't tell because she spent every single waking moment trying to ignore it.

The fact that almost every night she dreamed of that evening when she had picked Emma up off of her kitchen floor and helped her into her bed meant nothing to her. The fact that, sat in her office the previous night, she had come over suddenly breathless when Emma had thrown her the tiniest of smiles was ignored. For six weeks Regina Mills had gritted her teeth and swallowed down the nervous fluttering feeling that now seemed to permanently reside inside her chest, and this is what it had lead to: the wings had turned to stone, and suddenly she was heavy. She was being weighed down by her own poor decisions and stupid, thoughtless actions, trapped in her chair by the image of Emma's green eyes flashing with hurt. It was one image that was too powerful for even her to ignore.

She reached out and turned over a photo at random. It was a recent one, probably only from the previous week: Emma was sat at her desk, reading through some paperwork with a small frown etched across her forehead. Sidney had taken the photo through the window of the sheriff station, stood on the other side of the street. Regina peered down at it: from the angle that it had been taken at she was unable to see the scar that now ran down the sheriff's forehead, but she knew that it was there all the same. The darkness beneath Emma's eyes teamed with the sharp downturn of her mouth told her everything that she needed to know.

Regina narrowed her eyes as she examined the photograph, taking in every single detail of the woman who had been stubbornly clinging to the insides of her mind for six long weeks. And it suddenly struck her as being funny - because this woman wasn't Emma. Not really. The woman in that photograph wasn't the same woman whom she'd been dreaming about at all.

She began to rifle through the pile, turning the photos over in stacks of ten or twenty until she found some of the earliest shots. Photos from when Emma's hair still fell in princess curls, when her mouth constantly curved upwards into a disgraceful smile, and her posture, though slumped, was defiant rather than defeated. _This _was the person that Regina knew. This was how she still saw her, how she always pictured her – not as the broken mess of a woman that Moe and his gun and Regina's own thoughtlessness had left behind.

A memory snapped at the back of her mind, even as she tried to shake it away.

_So you can see yourself_, the voice was low, almost purring, _as _I_ see you_.

Regina dropped the photos from her trembling fingers. She frowned.

...because that was what people did, wasn't it? When they felt something… they proved it. They made the other person _see_ it.

She still didn't think about why she was doing this; why her heart was hammering against her ribcage; why her normally cool palms were slightly clammy as she gathered up the heap of photos and headed for the door. All she knew was that what she felt was sorry - and she was going to force Emma to understand that if it killed her.

_And… how do you see me?_

The colours that kept flashing before her eyes were easier to ignore, because they were always, always there: green eyes. Red leather. Yellow curls and a yellow car.

She tumbled into her own Mercedes, opening the glove compartment and rummaging around for a pen.

_As the fairest in all of the land._

* * *

**_A/N: _**_I'm **starsthatburn **over on tumblr, come and say hi! :D_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

The rest of the morning passed in a furious mess of the slamming of drawers and loud, frustrated groans as Emma tried as hard as she could not to think about the mayor. Her head was still pounding and, after the dream that she'd had the night before, she was somehow even more exhausted than she normally was after a night of no sleep at all. The sheriff's station had teeth and claws that day. By the time that the afternoon had arrived, she was begging someone to phone in with an emergency just so that she would have a reason to leave it.

She crossed her arms over on her desk and leant forwards, resting her forehead on top of them. The image of Regina sat before her, her eyes wide and pleading and desperately sorry, still swam before her. She didn't try to push it away, because she had to admit that a small part of her had still enjoyed watching the mayor squirm. The rest of her, however, was just hurting over it. She was hurting because Regina had done something so stupid and thoughtless, and she was hurting because she had let herself be quite so bothered by it.

_She's Regina_, she told herself, her eyes closed. _You shouldn't have expected anything else_.

She remained in that position for the next few minutes, partially wishing that she would drop off to sleep so as the make the day pass a bit quicker, regardless of what dreams that might bring about.

Then a knock at the station door jolted her back to consciousness. She groaned.

'Regina. Please, go _away_.'

'It's, um… it's not Regina.'

Emma shot upright in her seat at the sound of a man's low voice. Her right hand instinctively reached for her gun.

When she looked around she found August stood in the doorway to her office, worriedly eyeing the weapon at her hip.

'Oh,' she almost choked with relief, leaning back in her chair. 'God. You scared me.'

'I got that,' he said, his eyebrows knitting together. 'Can I come in?'

'Sure.'

He walked into the room, sitting himself down in the same chair that Regina had perched herself on the edge of only a few hours before.

'So. You look like hell, Emma,' he raised his eyebrows. 'Is everything okay?'

'Fine,' Emma responded too quickly. She forced a smile, but that only made it worse.

'Oh God,' he sighed, leaning forwards onto his knees. 'What's happened?'

'Nothing,' she said, picking up a pen and twirling it between two fingers. 'Just… you know. Having a bad day.'

'Right,' he slowly nodded, wondering how to go about this. He suspected that if Regina didn't know that he was still meeting with Henry on almost a daily basis, Emma probably didn't either. But he needed to find out what was going on here: he had come to the station expecting to find Emma angry, which she clearly was. But there was something else etched into her tired features, something that he hadn't been expecting. It looked like betrayal at first – but, every time that she blinked, it would quickly flash into something more painful, something with much deeper roots. Something that didn't come from simply being betrayed by a woman who you don't care much about.

He took a deep breath. 'Henry told me that you went round for dinner last night.'

Emma raised an eyebrow. 'So you're still seeing him, then?'

'Occasionally.'

'And did he…' Emma's gaze fell down to the desk that was sat between them. 'Did he say anything else?'

August managed not to blink. 'No. Not really.'

Emma released a long sigh, leaning back in her chair. She knew that Henry must have heard _something _– she and Regina hadn't exactly been quiet in their screaming or pleading or slamming of doors. But at least he wasn't running around town telling everyone else about it.

She didn't register the guilt that was burning in August's blue eyes.

'I'm guessing,' he said after a few moments of silence, 'that it didn't go very well, then?'

Emma jumped. 'What makes you say that?'

'You look like you want to hit something,' he said with a wry smile that quickly slipped. 'Or maybe even _cry_? Emma... come on. Something _must_ have happened.'

Emma automatically opened her mouth to respond – to lie, to say that everything was fine, to say that _she _was fine, like usual. But at the very last second she felt something crack inside of her, and suddenly the weight of what had happened the night before was too much for her to hold up by herself. She collapsed under it.

'She… she tricked me, August,' she said, her voice almost a whimper. And then she proceeded to tell him the whole story of what had happened that night.

As he listened to the story that he already knew the major details of, August closely watched Emma's face: there was definitely something different. It wasn't the scar that she hadn't bothered to try and cover up that morning, or the dark, sleepless circles beneath her eyes. It was something behind their greenness. Something that told him that he'd been wrong all along – Regina and Emma weren't friends. They never could be. Because Emma's heart was breaking and Regina, without even realising, had been the one who had broken it.

He inhaled sharply through his teeth. _How the hell did you miss this before?_

'She really doesn't think, does she?' he muttered once Emma had finished her story, swallowing down the tears that were clawing against her throat. 'She knew what something like that would do to you.'

'I know,' Emma sighed, scrubbing a fist below her eyes. 'But, that's Regina, I suppose. Since when has she ever thought about anyone besides herself?'

August frowned. 'Emma. You know you don't mean that.'

'Don't I?'

'No,' he said firmly. 'Come _on_ – it's been six weeks since the meeting, and in that time there has been _no one _who has tried to help you more than she has.'

'Yeah. Because she felt guilty.'

'Maybe at first. But if she's as selfish as you're saying, then I highly doubt that her guilt would have lasted quite this long. If Regina didn't actually care about you then she would've dropped you the second that she walked into your apartment to find you sat on the floor crying into a bottle of whiskey. Helping you that night took serious dedication; the sort that doesn't come from just feeling a little bit shamefaced.'

'That doesn't—'

'And, you know what else?' he persisted. 'If she didn't care about you – she would have_ remembered_ that Sidney was still following you, and she would have told him to stop. Because old, bitchy Regina didn't forget anything. She would have taken all of this as a golden opportunity where you were weak and defenceless, so much so that she wouldn't have had to bother attacking you at all. She would have left you to it, left you to not sleep and not cry and telling everyone that you're just fine, and instead she would have just tried to repair the damage in her relationship with her son. Without you there meddling anymore, it would have been the perfect time for her to win him back.'

'I don't _meddle_—'

'But she didn't do _any _of that, Emma,' August interrupted, the words tumbling out of his mouth. He seemed to only be realising the full extent of what he was saying as he was saying it – he hadn't realised the significance of everything that Regina had done until that very moment, when it was all laid out in front of him like an upturned envelope full of photographs. 'You know what she did: she forced her way in. She dragged you back into her life. She forgot that Sidney was following you because she was distracted, and she was distracted because she _gives _a damn. And I think you realise that: you're just too pissed off to admit it.'

Emma was slouched back in her chair, her arms folded across her chest. She had listened to the remainder of August's little epiphany without blinking, a resentful frown carved into her forehead. She ignored the fact that everything he was saying was, however obliquely, true – because she was still furious at Regina, and she wasn't going to let herself hope that she had done something so idiotic simply because Regina felt the same irritating fluttering in her chest whenever they were together as she did.

August's lips tugged upwards into a smile even so. 'You know I'm right, don't you?'

'No,' Emma snapped. 'I'm sorry, August, but quite frankly, you're talking shit. The bottom line is that she pretended to help me, but really she was just manipulating me all over again. That's it: that's all there is to it.'

'Quite defensive, aren't you?' he smiled. 'Are you sure that's all there is to it for _you_?'

Emma gaped at him, her stomach clenching. 'Are you _high_?'

'No. Just observant.'

'Jesus,' Emma rolled her eyes. 'Look, I don't know what you're getting at here, but you need to stop it. Regina and I aren't friends – we're never _going _to be friends. She doesn't know how to be friends with anyone because she can't even be nice unless there's some sort of agenda behind it.'

'Perhaps,' August shrugged. 'But maybe you just don't know what her agenda actually is.'

'It's to fuck me over, August.'

'Or _maybe_,' he said, leaning forwards. 'That's what you want to believe it is. Because the thought that it could be something deeper than that is _terrifying _to you.'

The sheriff simply looked at him for a moment, her trembling fists clamped between her knees. Eventually, she shook her head. 'You_ are_ high.'

'Just because I'm thinking more clearly than you?'

'Because you're acting crazy.'

'Because I'm not being blinded by the same betrayal that you are.'

'Well, good for you,' she bit out. 'You haven't been betrayed by someone who pretended to give a shit about you – I'm really happy for you. But I have, and _I'm _angry, and right now the last thing I want to do is start coming up with justification on her behalf. She hasn't earned it, and she's probably never going to. So, just drop it, will you? This is over.'

* * *

The end of the day crawled around. The moment that the clock struck five Emma was out of the sheriff station's door, slamming it behind her and only stopping for half a second to check that it was locked. Then she tore down the hallway, pain pulsating behind her eyes, more desperate than ever to get home.

The building was quiet, and when she reached the car park she found that it was almost deserted. Her yellow bug sat directly out front. Hitching up her latest stack of paperwork against her chest, she began searching in her pocket for the keys. She couldn't find them. Groaning, she threw the papers down onto the hood of the car, digging her hands through every pocket on her person until she located the bundle of metal within her red jacket. Pulling it out, she leaned over to unlock the door. It was then that she noticed the piece of paper that was trapped beneath the front wiper, flapping slightly in the September air.

She slowly reached out, plucking it from beneath the plastic bar, and turned it over. It was a photograph: there was a flash of blonde hair and the corner of an angry line running from a downturned mouth, but not much else. She gritted her teeth. Turning the photo back over again, she saw the message written on the back in the obnoxiously neat handwriting that could have only belonged to one person.

_Taking your advice_.

She frowned. Between screaming at her to get out of her office and then hating her when she did, she couldn't remember giving Regina any advice.

She opened the car door, throwing both the stack of papers and the photograph onto the back seat, before sliding inside and slamming the door shut behind her.

The nights were starting to get darker earlier, and so the drive back to Mary Margaret's apartment was surrounded by a dimming light that seemed to swallow up the car. Emma's mind kept drifting back to the photo that was sat on the seat behind her. It had annoyed her more than she should have let it – _what advice? What the hell is she doing now?_

She realised with a jolt that maybe Regina was going to get Sidney to publish the photos in the newspaper after all. Her jaw clenched thinking about it. It would hardly surprise her, at this stage – but she wasn't sure that she had enough fight left in her to go round to the mayor's office and beat her to death with the Storybrooke Mirror if she actually dared to do it.

A flash of something on the side of the road suddenly distracted her: as she passed one of the trees on Main Street, she thought that she saw something pinned to it. A rectangular piece of paper, fluttering in the wind. Emma snapped her head round, trying to look, but her car kept moving, and whatever it had been was already gone.

She parked the car outside the apartment building, remembering with a sigh when she found Mary Margaret's usual spot to be empty that she had some sort of PTA meeting that evening. Emma realised that she would be alone, and yet she hadn't stopped to pick up anything for dinner – not that it really mattered. The last time that she'd actually eaten a full meal had been too long ago to recall clearly. In fact, the most that she'd eaten in the last six weeks had probably been at Regina's house the night before.

_No_, she snapped to herself, clambering out of the car and dragging the papers with her. _Do not think about that woman_.

She left the photo on the back seat, locking the doors and storming over to the building. She almost dropped the stack of files when she realised that there was another photo pinned to the door of the stairwell.

'Jesus,' she muttered to herself, ripping it down. This one was less of a close shot – she could see the flash of her green eyes, the hint of a smile. Her face was unbruised and so it was obviously a much older one. Before she opened the door, Emma peered down at it for a moment: she could hardly remember looking like that anymore. She looked so… together. So utterly unbroken.

She sighed, slipping the photo between two files, before forcing the door open with her hip. Another three photographs greeted her, taped to the banister railing.

Emma gritted her teeth and tore each one of them down, burying them in her pile of paperwork and not letting herself look at them. She took to the stairs, then found another one waiting for her on the first landing.

'For fuck's _sake_, Regina,' she hissed, taking this one and scrunching it up into a ball. Before she did so she caught sight of her and Henry walking down the road together, her arm looped loosely around his shoulders. She didn't need to look at it properly to know that she had been grinning.

She walked up the next two flights with her eyes reluctantly scanning every wall, finding a new photograph or two pinned there every few steps. Every single one got ripped down, either flung to the floor behind her or pushed between the pages of a file that she definitely would not be looking through tonight. Her heart had started hammering against the inside of her chest in a way that she couldn't quite decipher as being from anger, or from nerves. _What the hell was she up to? _Emma pulled down another picture just before she reached the final set of stairs: she was laughing in it. Loudly, and happily, and carelessly. The sight of it made her stomach hurt.

With a sigh of relief she reached the landing outside of her apartment, rummaging in her jacket pocket once more for the key to the front door. She found it, gripped it between two fingers, and looked up. Then she dropped the papers like a bucketful of water.

The front door and the walls surrounding it were covered, floor to ceiling, in photographs of her. All of them were old ones, possibly from months ago, where she was chatting to Mary Margaret or laughing with Henry or simply walking down Main Street looking like she owned the place. There were no bruises to be seen, no scars clawing at her skin. She looked as comfortable in herself as she had ever done in her life, and it was alien. It was frightening.

Emma stepped over the heap of papers that had slipped from her arms and leaned in to look at them. The woman there… it wasn't her. Not anymore. This was the painful reminder of the part of her that had disappeared once she had been torn apart by Moe and his gun and his sticky, bloody hands. It almost physically hurt her to look at the comparison.

She was so involved in scanning her eyes over the wall that it took a long time for Emma to realise that she wasn't alone. She heard a small cough from behind her after a few minutes. She turned her head, her eyes glassy, and she didn't jump when she saw that Regina was stood waiting for her.

The mayor's hands were thrust into the pockets of her coat, her face anxiously waiting for Emma to start screaming at her. Her red lipstick had long since worn off from the way that she had been biting at her bottom lip.

Emma just looked at her for a moment, feeling the charge of the air all around them. When she spoke, her voice was quiet.

'Regina… what the hell is this?'

It almost broke Regina's heart to hear how exhausted she sounded. She took a step closer, removing a hand from her pocket so that she could gesture towards the wall of photos before them. Emma's eyes followed its movement.

'It was your idea. Not mine.'

Emma looked back round at her incredulously. 'At what point did I tell you to vandalise the whole of Storybrooke with pictures of my face?'

A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Regina's mouth. 'Well, you didn't use those words exactly. But as I recall, you did suggest a collage. So I decided to release my artistic side.'

Emma turned away from the door, rolling her eyes at the woman stood before her.

'Regina. This is… not normal.'

'No. Perhaps not,' Regina said with a shrug. She took another step forwards, deliberately picking her way over the reams of paper that Emma had let slip to the ground. 'But it's also not something that someone who was trying to frame you or trick you or humiliate you would necessarily do.'

'I don't know about that,' Emma said quietly, almost letting herself smile. 'If anyone saw this it would be pretty humiliating.'

There was a beat, and Emma found that she couldn't take her eyes off of Regina. The mayor was still, and her dark eyes were glistening. She looked terrified. She looked exhausted.

Realising that she was staring, Emma forced herself to blink. Her gaze fell to the ground between them.

'Regina…' she asked sadly, her voice cracking. 'Why did you do this?'

She looked up again when the mayor took another step towards her. Emma watched the muscles in her throat working as she swallowed.

She reached out a trembling hand to tuck one of Emma's curls behind her ear.

'So you could see yourself,' Regina said quietly, 'as I see you.'

The hammering in Emma's chest was stronger now; painful and almost deafening. She forced herself to take a breath, looking into the dark eyes that were now only inches away.

'And…' she faltered, but she didn't drop her gaze. 'And… how do you see me?'

Regina didn't answer. Her eyes fell down to Emma's lips, and then she leant forwards to meet them.

The pounding in Emma's chest slowed, and then it seemed to stop altogether. The feeling of Regina's mouth gently pressing against her own was startling; but even as electricity coursed through her nerves, sparking all the way down to her fingertips, her arms remained hanging uselessly by her sides. She couldn't breathe. One of Regina's hands reached up to touch the side of her face, but still she remained completely motionless with her eyes wide open, her chest tightening. Regina pulled away after a moment, her face pinched with worry. She saw the terror that was flashing through Emma's eyes.

Her hand left the side of the blonde's face, and she took a step away from her. Emma could only stare at her, her mouth slightly open.

'I'm sorry,' Regina eventually forced herself to say, biting down on her bottom lip. 'I shouldn't have… That was foolish. I should go.'

She turned away without waiting for a response, already bristling at her own stupidity and telling herself that she was absolutely _not_ allowed to cry until she was back home again.

Emma watched her take a single step. She watched her leaving her. It was then that August's words from earlier that day returned to her: _the thought that it could be something deeper than that is_ terrifying_ to you_. And all at once, like a downpour of rain that came before she had even noticed the sky clouding over, the drumming of her heartbeat returned to her. It jolted her back into consciousness, and the electricity darting through her nerves finally propelled her legs forwards.

She _was _terrified. But she also painfully, desperately wanted Regina to come back to her again.

The mayor hadn't even made it to the first stair before she felt a pressure on her arm. She turned her head. Caramel-coloured eyes were glazed with humiliation and sadness and something that looked like hope as Emma pulled her back towards her. The charged air surged around them, thick and heavy, filled with the same electricity that was causing Emma's heart to thrash against the inside of her ribcage. She bit her lip, reaching up to slide one hand through the mayor's dark hair. Her breath hitched in her chest before she pulled Regina's mouth back towards her own.

Regina's eyes fluttered closed as she felt Emma's lips slowly, tentatively pressing against hers. It was the tiniest of kisses, the tiniest of gestures, and yet it rocketed through the both of them. With her fingers tangled through the mayor's hair, Emma allowed herself to pull Regina's mouth closer, grazing at her lips with the tip of her tongue until they cautiously parted and allowed it to slide through. As it moved deeper, Regina heard herself sigh into the sheriff's mouth. Her hands reached forwards, slipping beneath Emma's jacket and around her waist so that she could hold her impossibly close to the taut muscles of her stomach. Emma sighed, dragging her tongue more firmly over Regina's. Her mouth was warm and tasted of coffee and lipstick and the syrup that she secretly drizzled over her pancakes at Granny's, and Emma knew without question that if she had stop kissing her, if she _ever _had to stop this, she would die. She would die without the taste of Regina on her tongue.

She tangled her fingers more tightly through the mayor's hair and moaned, pulling her closer, relishing the feeling of long fingernails digging into the flesh of her back through her shirt.

A heat was building inside Regina's stomach, and she took a step away from the staircase so that she could walk Emma backwards until her shoulders thudded against the brick wall. She heard what sounded like a giggle erupt from the sheriff's lips. It was quickly smothered by a groan as Regina raked her nails down her back, moving gradually lower until they were cupped around the back pockets of her tight jeans. The warmth inside Regina spread outwards, invading her extremities, burning harshly against the inside of her heaving chest until the only thing that she could think of doing to satisfy it was to slam Emma harder against the wall, curling her tongue around the sheriff's and then gently nibbling at the tip of it when it attempted to pass through her own lips in response.

Emma suddenly dragged her mouth away from Regina's, almost laughing at the disappointed whimper that followed, before she pulled back on the mayor's dark hair to expose her long, smooth throat. She scraped her front teeth down the perfect skin, stopping only to drag her tongue across the hollowness beneath her collarbone, before carving the same path back up again towards the mayor's pulse. It was throbbing through her skin and Emma didn't hesitate in covering it with her lips, nipping against the flesh until she could feel the mayor trembling. Emma smirked, lacing her fingers more tightly through her hair, and then started to kiss it, swirling her tongue over the frantic beating, sucking at it until the blood began to rush to the surface.

Eventually Emma's grip on Regina's hair loosened slightly, and the moment that it did Regina brought her hands up to the blonde's face and pushed her back into the wall, raining kisses down on her with such ferocity that her lips began to hurt. She buried her face against Emma's own neck, drawing a line of kisses down her throat until she reached her sharp collar bone, where her tongue flicked out and started to carve the letters of the alphabet into Emma's skin.

She had barely made it to F before she heard the sheriff start to moan, digging her nails into Regina's back.

'We… we should probably stop.' She choked the words out like they were painful to her.

'Mm,' Regina muttered against her throat, dragging her lips upwards until they met the hard line of Emma's jaw. 'Probably.'

She planted kisses all the way along it, fiercer with every sharp breath that she felt Emma draw in beneath her, until she reached her earlobe. Teasing it into her mouth with the tip of her tongue, she heard Emma whimper. Her blonde head thudded back against the wall.

'Regina,' she groaned. 'Jesus. We need to… someone could see us.'

'That's true.' Regina let out a short exhalation of breath against the shell of Emma's ear and tried not laugh when the sheriff sounded like she might start crying.

'Do you…' Emma took in a breath, trying to control herself. 'Do you maybe want to come inside?'

Finally Regina pulled away, reluctant to leave the smell of Emma's skin so far away from her. She sighed, drawing her thumb around the sheriff's now pink and swollen lips. 'I'm afraid I can't… I have to go and pick up Henry from Dr Hopper's office soon.'

'How soon?'

'…five minutes ago.'

'Oh,' Emma sighed, not bothering to veil her disappointment.

Regina's lips quirked upwards into a nervous smile. She leaned forwards once more, kissing the corner of Emma's mouth, before she quickly said, 'Come to dinner with me tomorrow.'

She felt Emma flinch. 'What?'

'Tomorrow night,' Regina said, leaning back so that she could take in Emma's worried expression. It was almost annoying how endearing she found it. She reached out to brush a curl away from her flushed face, smiling. 'I... I need to apologise properly.'

'I _think _you'll find that you just did.'

'Not enough, dear,' she muttered, running a fingernail down the front of Emma's exposed throat. 'Not nearly enough.'

Emma's breathing hitched. 'But… people will see us. They might guess…'

'They don't need to know,' Regina said firmly. 'No one needs to know. People are aware that we're not exactly enemies anymore, Miss Swan… if they see us out together, maybe they'll just be pleasantly surprised by how far along we've come.'

Emma's eyes flashed wickedly. 'Well. I suppose things _have_ taken a definite turn for the better recently.'

Regina raised one eyebrow before she pressed her lips back against Emma's, unable to stop herself. She could feel Emma grinning against them. Before she could slip her tongue back into the sheriff's mouth however, she felt herself being pushed away.

'Go on,' Emma said with a sigh, holding Regina by the shoulders like she knew that they both needed physically restraining in order to stop themselves from tumbling back into one another's arms. '…you have to go and get Henry.'

Regina jumped slightly, as if she'd already forgotten. 'Of course. Yes.'

She took a step back. Emma remained leaning against the wall, her body trembling curiously. She knew that she wouldn't be moving any time soon.

'So… will I be seeing you tomorrow?' Regina asked, her voice cracking only slightly.

Emma paused. 'Regina. Are you sure about this?' she asked, raising her eyebrows. 'You're not going to panic and end up standing me up?'

'No.' Regina said the word more firmly than she'd intended. 'I promise.'

With that, Emma's mouth curved upwards into a relieved smile. She nodded. 'Then yes. I'd love to.'

'Good,' Regina swallowed. 'I'll… I'll call you with the details.'

'Okay.'

There was another pause. Regina clearly wasn't willing to leave just yet, even though she could already feel her cell buzzing in her pocket as Archie no doubt called her to try and find out where she was.

'Oh,' she suddenly said, glancing to the mess of photos and papers to her left. 'I forgot about all of that – would you like me to stay and help clean up?'

'Go and get Henry, Regina,' Emma said with a smirk, finally pushing herself away from the bricks. 'He's already got abandonment issues. Let's not make them any worse.'

Regina laughed, raising her eyebrows. 'Yes. I suppose you might be right.'

There was one last pause where she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, unable to take her eyes off of the blonde woman stood before her and the way that she was, for the first time in six long weeks, almost glowing. She looked happy. Regina forced down a smile, her hands no longer trembling. And finally she turned to leave.

'Hang on,' Emma said barely half a second later. 'Do you have a scarf?'

Regina frowned. 'No. Should I?'

'Probably,' Emma said, reaching into her pocket to fish out her keys once more and unlocking the front door. She reached around the corner, grabbed her own red scarf off of the nearby hook, and returned to the woman stood at the top of the stairs. 'Henry might only be ten, but even he will probably notice if Mommy's got a great big hickey on her neck.'

Regina's hand immediately shot up to her pulse point, where Emma had spent the best part of five minutes driving her to distraction. 'I've got a _what_?'

Emma laughed, wrapping the scarf around her neck. 'Sorry. I didn't really think.'

'Why am I not surprised,' Regina huffed, pulling the scarf as tight as it would go. It smelt like vanilla and cinnamon. It smelt like Emma's hair.

'How's that for gratitude?' Emma snorted, leaning forwards to press her lips against Regina's for one last second. Then she stepped away. 'Go. Henry. Now.'

Regina bit her lip, fighting against the urge to charge back up the stairs and force Emma into the wall once more. She nodded.

'I'll see you tomorrow then, Miss Swan.'

'Yeah. See you, Regina.'

The mayor was halfway down the stairs when she heard the voice calling back to her.

'You know, you should think about releasing your artistic side more often.'

* * *

_**A/N: **So I decided that after 11 chapters of waiting, it might finally be time to give you guys a bit of actual swan queen-ing goodness. I really hope I didn't disappoint anyone! Leave me a review to let me know what you thought :) and remember that I'll write a one shot for whoever is the 300th reviewer... (oh hey there, bribery)_

_Come and say hi on tumblr as well if you like - I'm** starsthatburn **over there too :)_

_And thanks again for the amazing comments and general wonderful support on this fic - it means the world to me. I'm so grateful for you all xx_


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N: **I'm so sorry for the massive delay with this chapter - I've had a mad busy week (moved out of university, started back at my job, collapsed with exhaustion because the real world absolutely sucks) and so I genuinely haven't had time to proof-read this until now. But it's a long chapter to make up for it! I hope you all enjoy :)_

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**

August grappled for the loudly trilling phone that was sat on his desk. 'Hello?'

'August!' a voice hissed down the line at him. 'Something's happened!'

'What do you mean?' he frowned. He hooked the chair out from beneath the desk and sat down. 'What's up?'

'My mom was just on the phone to Kathryn,' Henry said, his voice low but throbbing with excitement. 'She's asked her to babysit me tomorrow night.'

August narrowed his eyes. '…okay?'

'And when she had to tell her where she was going,' the boy continued, almost dizzy with glee, 'she said that she was going out for dinner. And when Kathryn asked her who with, she said, "someone whom I would very much rather not spend any time with at all".'

'But that could be anyone, kid,' August said. 'I mean, your mom does dislike a whole lot of people.'

'But _then_,' Henry went on, ignoring the interruption. 'They were talking about where they would be going or something, and she said laughed and said, "yes, well, I just hope that she is capable of showing a little decorum and manages to not drink herself under the table for once".'

'Ah.' At this, August's face broke into a grin. 'Now _that _couldn't be just anyone.'

'What does this _mean_?' Henry spluttered, now pacing around his bedroom. 'I thought they were angry at one another? What's happened? Have you spoken to Emma today?'

'I saw her this morning,' August said, frowning. 'She was still really upset. I have no idea what your mom could have said to make her agree to this, but it had to be good.'

'Or maybe Emma just _does _want to be friends with her,' the boy said happily, throwing himself onto his bed. 'And that's enough for her.'

August thoughtfully ran a hand over his chin. 'Maybe. Maybe that's it.'

'Anyway, I've got to go,' Henry said. 'Dinner's nearly ready. I just wanted to let you know.'

'Thanks, buddy – I appreciate it,' August said, leaning back in his chair. 'Hey, if your mom says anything about it over dinner tonight, will you give me another call?'

'You bet,' Henry said. 'Speak to you later, August.'

The line went dead, and August replaced the ancient phone on the desk. An odd smile was spreading across his lips: one that half came from relief, and half came from knowing. Because he had been right: something _was _happening there. August knew that Emma Swan did not just automatically forgive people because they offered her dinner, nor did she overlook a blinding betrayal just because she missed a few catty, sarcastic exchanges. Emma was the type of girl who held onto her hurt and let it burn inside of her, and the only reason that she would have decided to let this particular pain go would be if there was something far, far more important waiting for her on the other side. Something that even she would not be willing to pass up.

August threw his head back, letting out a delighted, throaty sigh. _This is too strange_, he thought to himself. _Too strange, and too perfect._

* * *

'You look pretty, Mom.'

The voice came from the door that Regina hadn't realised she'd left open. She jumped, turning to look at where her son was leaning against the frame with his arms folded across his chest. He was smiling, and not in his usual happy-ten-year-old kind of way.

'Thank you, Henry,' she said, turning back to her full-length mirror. She frowned: she didn't feel pretty.

'Emma will like it.'

As Regina reached up to adjust one of the pins in her hair, her eyes met her son's in the glass of the mirror. She raised one eyebrow.

'I highly doubt that Miss Swan will even notice what I'm wearing.'

'She'll notice,' Henry insisted, taking a small step into the room. 'I promise.'

Regina scrutinised her reflection once more. As much as it pained her to admit it, her stomach had been jumping with nerves since she'd suggested this meeting to Emma the previous evening. As a result, the tightly-fitted black dress that she was now wearing was the sixth outfit that she'd tried on in the last hour.

She swallowed, watching the smile on her son's face in the mirror. 'Do you… do you think this dress is better than the red one?'

He glanced over at where his mother's other clothing options were currently spread out across her bed. 'Definitely. That one's nice. Plus red's a sort of lovey colour anyway – you don't want people thinking that you and Emma are out on a date.'

He giggled as he said this, like the idea was the most outrageous thing that he'd ever heard. Regina forced a smile, nodding.

'You're absolutely right,' she said, examining her reflection once more. 'Black it is.'

The dress was perfectly tailored to her body, but it was one that she'd never worn before tonight because she'd never had anywhere to wear it. It was too dressy for the mayor's office, and it wasn't like she'd been invited on many dates in the past twenty-eight years. Her brief meetings with Graham hadn't required her to consult with her wardrobe very often – generally she went into them blindly, not thinking about what she was doing at all. He hadn't either. The whole thing had just been yet another familiarity that Emma Swan's arrival had managed to shatter, and yet she couldn't honestly say that she even missed it that much anymore. There had always been something in it that made her feel as cheap and as worthless as she had done many years before, in another land, in another man's bed.

She reached up, anxiously patting at the side of her head to make sure that her hair was staying in place. She'd pinned it up, forcing it into an almost old-Hollywood up-do that she'd never attempted before and was already making her face feel far too exposed. She examined herself in the mirror, all of a sudden worried that her red lipstick was too bright. Maybe if she wore the red dress after all it wouldn't appear quite so garish.

She turned around to ask Henry's opinion, suddenly not considering what it must look like to him to see his mother quite so worked up about her going for a simple meal with her town's sheriff, only to find him sat on her bed, watching her.

She stopped in her tracks. 'What?'

He blinked, like he hadn't realised that she was even there anymore. 'Oh. Nothing. I was just thinking.'

'Thinking about what?' she asked, forcing herself not to look back into the mirror again.

'About you. And Emma,' he said, tilting his head to one side. Regina's stomach clenched. 'You're really trying to be friends with her, aren't you?'

'Of course I am,' she said, beginning to step into her towering black heels. 'I promised you I would, Henry.'

'But you _want _to – right?' he asked slowly. 'You're not just doing this for me?'

Regina paused, one hand leaning against the wall. She swallowed.

'I do,' she said eventually, her voice quiet. She wasn't sure that she'd ever admitted it before – to herself, or much less out loud to somebody else. Then again, she hadn't had anyone who would have wanted to know before now. Not many people in Storybrooke showed an interest in her personal life.

'Really?'

'Yes,' she said, smiling at her son over her shoulder. 'I do. Miss Swan is… well. She's annoying and she's rude and she feeds you far too many sweets while thinking that I won't notice. But she's also your mother, and she's… she's a good person. I think. And I'd like to be able to live in a world where we can get along with one another, with civility; not fighting over you and not having to worry about one another anymore.'

There was a pause after she had spoken and she kept her head down, pretending to be absorbed in the task of putting her left shoe on. Then suddenly two thin arms were wrapped around her waist, squeezing surprisingly hard for a tiny, timid ten year old boy.

'I'm glad,' he mumbled against her dress. 'I want you to be happy, Mom. I really do. And I'm glad that you're trying to let yourself.'

It took every ounce of strength that Regina possessed to force back the tears that were choking at her windpipe.

The doorbell rang, and Regina ran a hand over her son's hair. 'That'll be Kathryn. Will you go and let her in for me?'

'Sure,' he said, smiling up at her before he turned to leave the room. As he reached the doorway, he turned back for just a moment. 'You do look really nice, Mom. She's going to love it.'

And then he disappeared down the stairs, leaving Regina alone in the middle of her bedroom with her shoes pinching at her feet and one tendril already threatening to slip free from her hair.

* * *

She was the first to arrive at the restaurant because, naturally, she was ten minutes early. At her request the manager had given them a table that was far into the corner of the room, where Regina hoped that she and Miss Swan would be slightly less conspicuous: from the moment that she sat herself down, however, she could feel the eyes of countless other patrons slipping across the restaurant towards her. She wet her lips, forcing her gaze to remain staring down at the table. Her right hand reached out and started fiddling with the cutlery, lining up the tines of the fork with the top edge of her napkin as she waited for her breathing to slow down.

She heard a cackle of laughter coming from a table on the other side of the room. She had absolutely no reason to suspect that she was the one being laughed at, and yet she felt her cheeks burn all the same.

Those ten minutes crawled by, until finally she heard the door to the restaurant open at exactly seven o'clock. She didn't need to look up to recognise the sound of the footsteps that were being led over to her table by the waiter.

When she did raise her head, her jaw nearly dropped back to the table in surprise. At first all she could see was the sea of green-blue fabric, a perfect match for the eyes of the woman wearing it. It took a second for Regina to realise that the material was taking the form of a dress, and that Emma Swan was definitely the one who was wrapped in it.

Without the sheriff's usual armour of red leather and denim, it was suddenly all too obvious to the mayor just how thin she had actually gotten over the past few weeks: the dress was tightly fitted around a waist that was so narrow that it looked like a child's, and her pale limbs were as thin and fragile as those of a cartoon deer just learning how to walk. And yet, Regina couldn't take her eyes off of her: it pained her to admit it, but this aching thinness almost suited Miss Swan. Her eyes, highlighted by the dress, shone from her face; blinking anxiously from atop sharp cheekbones. Perfect blonde curls fell like a cloak over the fierce wings of her shoulder blades.

She looked stunning, and uncomfortable. And Regina still hadn't said a word.

'Hi,' Emma offered after a few moments, sliding herself into the chair that the waiter was holding out for her. Regina blinked, shaking herself back into consciousness.

'Miss Swan,' she finally stammered out, forcing a smile. 'Forgive me. I just wasn't quite expecting… this.'

'The dress?' Emma asked, a tiny, nervous smile slipping across her lips. 'Yeah. I can understand the surprise. It's… a change.'

'That it is,' Regina smiled, her eyes falling back down to the oceanic fabric. 'It's beautiful.'

'Thank you,' Emma said, looking down at where her fingers were tangled together in her lap. 'You look nice too. Your hair… that style suits you.'

'I feel a bit First Lady-esque.'

'Well, you've got to go somewhere when you're done with being mayor,' Emma said. 'Marrying the president may as well be your next career move.'

Regina laughed, shaking her head. Emma realised in that moment that hearing the mayor giggle was possibly her favourite sound in the world.

There was a pause, and Emma put the purse that she'd had to sneak out of Mary Margaret's room earlier that evening on the floor by her foot. Out of it, she pulled a bundle of papers.

Regina frowned. 'Do you often bring homework with you to restaurants, Miss Swan?'

Emma's lips quirked upwards. She unfolded the papers, then slid them across the table towards the mayor.

'They're just some old emails that I found in my desk,' she said quietly. 'I thought… I thought that tonight might call for props.'

The understanding hit Regina so fast that she almost laughed. 'So that people will think we're actually here to discuss work?'

'Something like that.'

'I see,' Regina said, nodding down at the mundane email that had been addressed to Emma two months ago: it had come from the man who ran Storybrooke's animal shelter regarding a lost dog. 'That was actually a very smart idea, Miss Swan.'

'Always so surprised,' Emma said, leaning forwards across the table, tapping her finger against a blank space at the top of the paper. Regina's eyes flicked up to meet Emma's as she continued in a low voice, her face carefully expressionless. 'I'm glad you came, Regina.'

Regina's heart skipped slightly. 'Why wouldn't I?'

'Panic. Regret,' Emma said quietly. 'Or suddenly realising that you actually do hate me after all.'

'That's a bit presumptuous – I don't recall ever saying that I _don't _hate you?' Regina said coolly, and Emma immediately snorted with laughter. She sat back in her chair, shaking her head at the brunette sat before her.

Regina bit her lip, then forced herself to say the words that had been bothering her all day. 'Actually… I was more concerned that _you_ weren't going to show up.'

Emma's eyes looked at her curiously. 'Me? Why?'

'I thought that maybe…' Regina's sentence drained off into nothing as she went back to adjusting the straightness of her fork. 'I thought that you might want to get back at me. For what I did.'

'By standing you up?'

'Perhaps.'

'Glad to hear that you still have such a high regard for me,' Emma said, sounding only slightly offended. 'For what it's worth, Regina – I am still annoyed at you. I mean, I'm trying really hard not think about just how pissed off I am at you right now because I might take that damn fork out of your hand and run you through with it.'

'Charming.'

'But that doesn't mean that I was about to humiliate you by leaving you here alone,' she said, frowning slightly. 'I mean… I wanted to see you. God knows why, but I did. Even though I've spent most of the day feeling absolutely sick and then took nearly two hours to get ready. _Two hours_, Regina. Do you realise how ridiculous that is for me?'

A small smile spread across Regina's face, but she didn't comment on how her own preparations that afternoon had taken closer to three.

Her eyes yet again fell back to the perfect ocean colour of Emma's dress. 'That is quite a long time. Especially since I would have thought that someone like you would be fairly apt at preparing for dates by now.'

Emma raised one eyebrow. 'Someone like me?'

Regina dropped the fork that she had still been fiddling with back to the table with a clatter. 'Oh. No – I didn't mean… I just meant, you know, someone who looks like you. I just would have expected you to be asked out for dinner often enough that you no longer worry about it.'

'No, I get it,' Emma replied, sitting back in her chair and trying to repress the urge to smile over just how horrified the mayor was looking at her own faux pas. 'You think I look easy. I understand.'

'That's not what I _meant_,' Regina spluttered, feeling her face flushing bright red. This was a disaster – it was barely five minutes in and her foot was already fixed firmly in her mouth. She firmly chose to blame her awkwardness on how she was feeling so deeply uncomfortable that they may as well have decided to meet in a Taco Bell, rather than blaming it on the more obvious reason: ignoring the electric fluttering inside her stomach had become second nature to her, even if it had never been quite as nauseating as it was tonight.

Finally, Emma laughed. 'Calm down, Madame Mayor. I'm just screwing with you.'

Regina groaned, leaning back in her chair. 'That was cruel, Miss Swan. I was trying to pay you a compliment.'

Emma raised her eyebrow.

'Why?' she asked, tilting her head to one side. 'Because we're on a date?'

'Well,' Regina said, forcing herself not to stammer. 'I suppose so, yes.'

'You don't have to do that,' Emma said. She folded her arms across the edge of the table and leant forwards, lowering her voice. 'I'm not expecting anything big or grand or different tonight, Regina. I'm just expecting you.'

'Yes. Well. Being myself hasn't worked out very well for me recently.'

'I wouldn't exactly say that,' Emma said softly, not blinking. Regina felt that fierce rush of blood rising in her cheeks once more.

She went back to fiddling with her fork, hoping that focusing on lining up its silver end with the knife that lay parallel to it would distract her from how loudly her heart was pounding. Her mouth had gone completely dry, and it wasn't lost on her that the waiter was obviously avoiding coming over to take their wine order.

'For what it's worth,' Emma said after a moment, eyeing the frown that had begun to form between the mayor's eyebrows. 'I don't actually go on many dates.'

Regina's dark eyes flicked back up again. 'I find that difficult to believe.'

'The last one I went on was on my birthday. On the day that Henry came to find me,' Emma said, rolling her eyes. 'But that didn't exactly count – I was working. Plus I ended up having the table thrown into my lap.'

Regina blinked. 'Do… do all of your dates normally end that way?'

Emma flashed her a smile. 'All of the ones where I'm trying to throw some guy's ass in jail do.'

'And, before that one?' Regina asked, the fork finally laying still. 'You must have dated in Boston?'

'Not really,' Emma shrugged. 'The odd guy here and there. But honestly, since… since Henry's father, the idea of going out to deliberately get my heart broken kind of lost its appeal. It's easier to just stay away from guys unless it's clear that they definitely aren't wanting anything long-term.'

Regina frowned: that was one honest admission that she hadn't been expecting.

'And yet you're here now.'

'I know.'

'Why is that?'

Emma swallowed, looking down at the table. 'I'm not sure... why are _you _here?'

Regina smiled faintly. 'I don't really know either. As far as I can recall, I'm supposed to hate you, Miss Swan. And yet… you're the first person that I've actually wanted to spend any sort of time with since… well. For a while, anyway. And I don't really know why.'

Emma watched her as she spoke, taking in the absolute expressiveness of her eyes. The mayor still looked uncomfortable, and terrified: like she was absolutely convinced that Emma was only there to play some kind of joke on her, and she wasn't necessarily sure that she didn't actually deserve that.

It suddenly struck Emma just how small Regina was. Sat in front of her, rather than squaring up to her in her towering heels with her eyes full of fire and challenge, the mayor looked tiny and uncertain. It was something that Emma found endearing in a way that she never had before.

She learned forwards against the table, forcing Regina's dark eyes to meet her green ones.

'People do say that there's a fine line between love and hate, you know,' she said quietly. 'We spent months being scared of one another, resenting one another, feeling threatened by one another. Maybe it just took something big to make us both realise that, once you remove the Henry issue from the equation… we're really kind of _right_ for one another. Which is a thought that I'm still not quite used to.'

Regina smiled faintly. 'I didn't realise that you were a believer in true love, Miss Swan.'

'Oh, I'm not,' Emma shrugged, glancing around the room. 'But I am a believer in balance. You do realise that we're pretty much opposite in every way? And it's all of those things about you that I don't see in myself… your self-assurance, your dignity… the fact that you actually iron your clothes… Those are the things that always riled me up the most. And I always thought it was just because they irritated me, but over the last few weeks… I don't know, Regina. I just think that we balance each other out because all of that stuff that I don't see in myself, I see in you. And it was only ever annoying because I… I found it really, insanely attractive.'

'You did?'

'Are you kidding?' Emma rolled her eyes, but she could feel her cheeks beginning to burn. 'All of those fights, Regina – did you really think we were just doing it because we didn't like one another?'

'I didn't know why you were doing it,' Regina said in a low voice. 'I knew why _I _was doing it.'

'…and why was that?'

The mayor swallowed. 'Because I enjoyed annoying you. Because whenever you got annoyed, you would get right in my face and refuse to step down again until you'd proved that you weren't scared of me. And I suppose that all of this time I told myself that I liked that because it was a challenge, and I always enjoy a challenge. But recently… I realised that maybe I liked it because it was just exciting. To have you angry at me, and determined to outdo me, and turning up at my office just so that you could shout at me. Sometimes you just don't let yourself think about why you're doing things even if deep down it's so obvious to you that it almost hurts to hold it in.'

Emma blinked, tilting her head to one side. Across the room she could see that the waiter was watching them, obviously wanting to come over to take their order but terrified to interrupt their conversation. She was thirsty, but she ignored him nonetheless: she wanted to hear this.

'You…' she started, then swallowed. 'You've liked me for a while?'

'I suppose so,' Regina muttered, going back to lining up her fork with the edge of her napkin. 'I would never have admitted it, even under torture. Even to myself. But there had to be a reason why I always went after you even when you weren't doing anything to particularly offend me that day. There had to be a reason why I found myself moving so close to you that day when Henry got trapped in the mines.'

'…I always assumed that you were just trying to manipulate me.'

'You remember what I'm talking about?'

'Of course I do,' Emma said with a shrug. 'Because it annoyed me at the time. And basically, whenever you do something that annoys me, it's usually because I'm frustrated by how… flustered it got me.'

A smile was now spreading across the red slash of Regina's lips. 'You don't seem the type to get easily flustered, Miss Swan.'

Emma smiled faintly. 'I never was. Until you came along.'

Finally, the waiter appeared with his notepad clutched in one trembling hand and his smile too wide, too eager to help. Before he could speak Regina picked up the papers that Emma had brought, folding them neatly in half and sliding them into her own purse.

'We'll continue discussing those later, Sheriff Swan,' she said in her familiar, cool mayoral voice. 'For now: would you like some wine?'

* * *

It was somewhere around the second bottle that Regina finally allowed herself to relax.

For the entirety of the meal she hadn't been able to take her eyes off of Emma. The initial awkwardness of their uncertain, slightly stilted conversation had slowly dissolved into laughter, and even though she could feel the eyes of every other person in that restaurant continually turning to look at the pair of them, she couldn't stop herself from smiling. Neither, it seemed, could her sheriff. Emma has stopped nervously tangling her fingers up in her lap and instead had them looped around her full glass of red wine, her other hand moving animatedly as she told one story or another. Regina sat back in her chair, nodding her thanks to the waiter as he removed their empty plates, unable to speak for fear of interrupting the sound of Emma's voice. It was excitable and free in a way that she didn't think she'd ever heard her sound before. It was a beautiful noise. The red wine had turned her lips the colour of plums, and her green eyes were shining. Even the scar that now ran down her temple somehow seemed to glimmer.

Regina could have happily sat there and watched her all night – it wasn't until she finally forced herself to look around, seeing that the majority of the restaurant was now empty, that she realised that she almost had done.

Emma followed her gaze, jumping. 'God. What time is it?'

'Almost half eleven,' Regina said, glancing down at her watch. 'Tell me, Miss Swan, as our resident expert on dating: at what time does one consider a dinner to have been a success?'

Emma smirked. 'Probably about an hour ago.'

'That's certainly encouraging.'

'And I'm _not _an expert on dating,' Emma said, rolling her eyes. 'We've been through that.'

'I'd still say that you're the expert at this table.'

'And I'd say that you're lying,' Emma said, leaning back in her chair with her wine glass held loosely before her. 'You must go on dates.'

'Fairly sporadically.' One loveless marriage and one cursed booty-call could hardly count for more.

'Tell me about them.'

Regina swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. 'I think… I think you'll find that you already know about them.'

Emma frowned, considering this. And then her eyes went wide. 'Oh. You mean Graham… he's it?'

'Yes.'

'In ten _years_?'

'Yes, Miss Swan. He's it.'

Emma could already hear the defensive tone slipping back into Regina's voice, and she forced herself to take a step back.

'Okay – I'm imposing a new rule.'

'I didn't peg you as someone with a fondness for any rules at all.'

'The rule,' Emma continued, ignoring her, 'is this: we don't mention Graham. Not for a while, anyway.'

Regina blinked: she hadn't been expecting that.

'And why is that, Miss Swan?'

'That's a door that I don't think that either of us wants to be opening, Regina. There was a lot of anger there, on both sides. And a lot of hurt. It probably still hurts, and so why bring it up and ruin everything that we've managed to do since then? I'm happy to put a pin in that topic for now, if you are.'

Relief hit Regina like a train. Thinking about Graham was… difficult. Talking about him was even more so. The knowledge that Emma didn't plan on bringing him up any sooner than she did was something that she planned to cling onto for dear life for the foreseeable future.

Until, of course, it inevitably had to be talked about. But that was a worry for another day.

'Agreed,' Regina said, forcing a smile. She took another look around the room, exhaling. 'But, for now, I think the time might have come to put that fidgety waiter of ours out of his misery and perhaps ask for the check. Wouldn't you say?'

Emma grinned, glancing across the room towards where he was skulking near a potted fern. 'He does kind of look like he might start crying.'

Regina raised one hand in the air, gesturing that they were ready to pay for the meal, and he nearly fainted with relief. Emma couldn't help the ungainly snort of laughter that escaped from her nose.

She had barely leaned forwards, reaching for the purse by her feet, before Regina said in a low, warning voice, 'Miss Swan. Stop that.'

'What?'

'Put your money away. This is my treat.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Regina, you don't have to _buy _my forgiveness. I think we've already established that I'm not exactly furious at you anymore.'

'You are still mad at me,' Regina said simply, pulling out her own credit card, 'and rightfully so. But that's not why I'm paying: I'm paying because I invited you, because you are my guest, and because I want to say thank you.'

'Thank you? For what?'

Regina paused, her eyes skittering across Emma's curious face for the hundredth time that evening. Eventually she replied in a soft voice, 'I'll tell you some day.'

Emma couldn't help but smile. She replaced her purse on the floor, and she let Regina pay.

Outside of the restaurant, the parking lot was mostly empty. Their own cars were sat on opposite sides of the concrete, but given that Emma was already struggling to remain upright in her heels and that Regina's eyes were stubbornly refusing to focus on anything at all that surrounded her, they both knew that they wouldn't be leaving in them.

'I suppose I'd better call us a cab,' Regina said, bracing her body against the sharp air. Emma was already shivering, having stupidly neglected to bring any sort of jacket with her. 'And preferably before you catch hypothermia.'

Emma gritted her teeth into a smile. 'Please.'

Regina called the taxi company, and then the pair of them walked over to the low wall that surrounded the parking lot. Regina sat as close to Emma's trembling arm as she could, hoping that her body would help to shield her from the wind. Emma smiled to herself, looking down at her feet; unfamiliar in towering heels and prickling with the cold.

'I've had a really good time tonight, Regina,' she said after a few moments. The mayor turned to look at her: from her position she was barely half a foot away from the deep scar on Emma's forehead, and she was suddenly filled with the overwhelming urge to reach out and drag one finger across it.

Instead, she clenched her fists more tightly in the pockets of her coat. 'So did I.'

'It might be a shame to finish the night now,' she slowly offered, still looking down. 'You… you can come back to mine for a drink, if you like.'

Regina's face broke into a smile, and she quickly turned her head away so that Emma wouldn't see it.

'That's a very kind offer, Miss Swan,' she said, biting down on her bottom lip. 'But I'm not sure that that's a good idea – given that I'm assuming that your roommate will probably be there.'

'She won't be,' Emma said with a shrug. 'She'll be out with—'

And then she froze. _Shit_. She glanced around to see if Regina was waiting for her to finish her sentence and found that the mayor was watching her with narrowed eyes.

_She's friends with Kathryn, you fucking idiot_, Emma snapped at herself, trying desperately to think of another alibi for where Mary Margaret could be at midnight on a Tuesday evening.

'She'll be out with… Ruby,' she eventually said, not looking up. There was a pause.

Then Regina snorted with laughter, nudging the woman sat beside her. 'Don't worry, Miss Swan. I'm well aware of where she'll be tonight.'

Emma's head snapped around to stare at her, her brow furrowing. 'You are?'

'Of course. Kathryn's round at my house looking after Henry right now – do you think that our resident adulterers would pass up such a perfect opportunity to burn some more holes through David's wedding vows?'

'You _knew_?'

'I'm the mayor, dear. I know everything.'

Emma breathed a sigh of what could have been relief, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself.

'They're idiots,' she said after a moment, her voice low.

Regina nodded. 'I couldn't agree more. But then again, so is Kathryn for not suspecting anything.'

'She really doesn't know?'

'Not as far as I'm aware. If she were willing to look harder, I suppose she might notice something. But she's… desperate. She wants her marriage to work so badly that she's ignoring what's right in front of her.'

'And…' Emma swallowed, watching the sad lines around Regina's eyes. 'And you haven't told her?'

'No,' Regina forced a smile. 'Some things aren't for me to meddle in. I've learned that the hard way recently.'

A small smile came over Emma's face just as the taxi pulled into the parking lot. Regina stood, then held out a hand to help Emma to her feet.

'How about that drink, then?' the blonde asked, her face carefully expressionless. Regina smiled.

'Well. I don't see why not.'

* * *

'What on _earth _is this?' Regina said, snapping her head around at the sound of the music that had just started playing from Emma's speakers.

'Van Halen,' Emma muttered, her thumb scrolling furiously through her iPod. 'Don't worry, I'm not subjecting you to this all night. I'm just looking for something.'

Regina wrinkled her nose, already dreading what that 'something' would be, before sitting herself down on the very edge of the sofa. The sofa that belonged to Mary Margaret. She forced herself not to shudder.

Something softer and more acoustic began to leak from the speakers and, when Emma didn't see Regina actively turn the coffee table over in disgust, she decided that it would do. Picking up two glasses in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other, she padded barefoot back across the room towards where Regina was perched on the edge of the couch looking like she'd been sucking on a lemon.

'The couch doesn't have fleas, Regina,' she said, holding out a glass to the mayor.

'I fail to see how you can possibly know that,' Regina muttered, taking the tumbler and watching as Emma liberally filled it with scotch. She filled her own, then placed the bottle on the table in front of them. When she sat down on the couch she forced herself to leave a gap between her and the woman perched uncomfortably next to her.

'Do you… like living here?' Regina asked after a moment, her eyes on the peeling paint of the wall opposite her. She had meant it as a genuine question, but her usual scathing tone slipped through her words without her meaning it to.

Thankfully, Emma was fairly adept at not being offended by it anymore.

'Yeah,' she said, tucking one leg beneath her and sipping at her drink. 'I really do.'

'Your apartment in Boston must have been nicer than this.'

'I guess,' Emma shrugged. 'But it was pretty empty. And cold. And going back to somewhere like that after a day of nearly getting shot by people who think you're the scum of the earth isn't exactly relaxing.'

'Plus you have Mary Margaret here,' Regina said slowly, drinking some of her scotch. She was surprised to find that it didn't leave her mouth with the foul taste of burning flesh.

'Yeah. That's a bonus.'

'It's… it's good that you two get along so well.'

Emma laughed sharply. 'Don't give me that, Regina – you can't stand her.'

'Well… no. But that doesn't mean that I can't be pleased that you've found a friend in her.'

Emma leaned forwards, her eyebrows raised. 'Regina. I told you – I'm not expecting anything different here. I'm just expecting you.'

'And I can't be nice about people?'

'Not about Mary Margaret, you can't. She's the only person in this town that you hate more than me.'

'And look how well hating you worked out for me,' Regina said with a faint smile, her eyes flicking down to watch Emma's lips curving upwards in return. 'Who knows – I might end up adopting her.'

Emma burst out laughing, unconsciously shuffling closer to Regina on the couch. 'I'm not sure that that's legal, Regina. She's, what? Six years younger than you?'

There was a pause, and then Regina said quietly, 'Yes. I believe it's something like that.'

Emma didn't notice the dull note of sadness that had penetrated through her voice. She was too busy watching the fluttering of Regina's eyelashes over her dark, thoughtful eyes.

She could only stare for a few moments before those familiar butterflies started beating their wings against the inside of her stomach.

She took another sip of her drink, and then reached out a hand for Regina's glass.

'Give me that for a moment, will you?'

Regina slowly handed it over, confused. She watched as Emma placed both of the glasses on the coffee table, then returned to her seat beside the mayor.

Her hand reached out and found its new favourite spot at the back of Regina's neck before either one of them could register what she was doing. Biting down on her bottom lip, Emma leaned forwards and quickly pressed her mouth against Regina's.

Almost immediately Regina's own hands slipped forwards and wound their way around Emma's narrow waist, tugging her body closer to her as their lips parted. She could taste the sheriff's chocolate dessert still lingering on her tongue. Regina's fingers trailed down her back, counting the nodules of her spine, the dents of her recently healed ribs. Emma inhaled sharply, wriggling closer to her, dragging one hand out from beneath Regina's hair so that it could trail down the side of her face and rest underneath the hard, working line of her jaw. She pressed her fingers against her frantically throbbing pulse, sighing into Regina's mouth as she pushed herself up onto her knees. Slipping her left leg between both of the mayor's, she pulled away from her for just a moment, looking down into those desperate brown eyes with her heartbeat racing.

She brought both of her hands up to the sides of Regina's face, pushing back at the tendrils of hair that had escaped from their new style, and smoothing them down. Regina watched the concentration in her misty eyes. Emma slowly leaned forwards, planting a kiss on either of Regina's temples, before tilting the mayor's head back until her lips could capture Regina's between them once more.

As her tongue dove into the mayor's mouth, Emma could hear herself moaning from the back of her throat. Her hands were tangled in Regina's hair now, tugging the pins free and letting the dark tendrils fall freely across the back of the sofa. She snaked her fingers through them, bunching her hands into fists and not loosening them even as she heard the sharp intake of breath coming from Regina's mouth. Hands were clawing at her back, finding the dress's zipper and sliding it slowly downwards so that Regina could rake her nails down Emma's bare flesh, her fingers skittering across the bumps of her ribcage. Emma groaned, leaning her body downwards until the majority of her weight was resting on Regina's left thigh. She realised with a jolt just what point of her own body the pressure was being focused on, and suddenly it was too late to do anything about it.

As she dragged her tongue across Regina's, she could feel her left knee sliding further between the mayor's legs. She heard a groan. Regina dug her nails deeper into Emma's back, carving a path down her spine, and suddenly she could feel her hips rocking forwards to meet the weight of Miss Swan's leg; an action that she had no idea that she was even about to attempt. As soon as she felt the pressure grinding between her legs, she came undone. Her head fell backwards against the couch, her bare throat once again exposed to Emma's voracious eyes. She could hear herself moaning the moment that she felt those same sharp teeth nipping at the flesh of her neck, that languid tongue slowly tracing a line down to the hollow of her throat. Her hips rolled forwards once more, and she whimpered. Emma's own body ground against the top of her thigh, and the sudden warm dampness that it left behind made her want to throw the sheriff onto the coffee table and rip that dress clean off of her.

'Emma,' she groaned, her voice vibrating against the blonde's lips. 'We need to stop.'

Emma's heart was beating so violently that she thought that she could feel it bruising her chest. She rolled her hips against Regina's leg once more, pressing her knee further forwards without a word. The sharp gasp that came from the mayor's lips was enough to make her want to scream.

'_Emma_.' Regina sounded more firm this time, but her nails still held furiously onto the sheriff's back. She could already feel the little half-moons that she was digging into the pale flesh beneath her fingertips, and yet she didn't let go. She couldn't let go. The fluttering in her stomach had turned into a fierce, hot grating, and if she let go now, she would crumble.

'Mm?' Emma eventually responded, easing the fabric of Regina's dress off of one shoulder so that she could drag her tongue across the hot skin.

'...oh, _g__od_.'

'You want me to stop?'

'I… yes. I mean, no, but… we should— _oh_.'

Her sentence was cut off by her own groan as Emma's fingers suddenly found their way up to her breasts, gently kneading against the soft flesh until Regina's mouth began to quiver.

'I can stop if you like,' Emma muttered against her throat, trailing a line of kisses from her throbbing pulse down to the lacy fabric of her bra. She didn't push it aside, but instead she let her tongue trace along the edge of it. Everything within Regina wanted her to bite down, to tear the damn thing off, to tear her _own _clothes off and press her full body against her and make her come completely and utterly undone.

But she couldn't. She had to do this right.

'You… you need to stop, Emma.'

This time, Emma looked up. Her eyes, which had been wide and desperate, now narrowed with disappointment.

'Oh.'

She started to pull away, moving to clamber off of Regina's lap – the second that she did, a hand snaked around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a fierce, devastating kiss.

'Do not think,' Regina muttered against her lips, leaning forwards to kiss her between the words, 'that I want you to. But you have to.'

'Why?' Emma said sulkily, not kissing Regina back but in no way trying to get her to stop. 'I thought you—'

'I do,' Regina said firmly. 'I promise you, I do.'

'So why—'

She was interrupted again by Regina tugging her forwards, trapping her lips between her own.

'Because,' she said after a few moments, her chest rising and falling furiously. 'This is… terrifying. Nothing has ever scared me more. And I don't want to fall headfirst into it and then regret moving too fast later, because we've burned out all of the passion and just moved onto resenting each other once more. I won't have that, Miss Swan. I want to do this right.'

Emma eyed her thoughtfully, taking in the sincerity that was melting through her caramel eyes.

'You think too much,' she said after a while. But she was smiling.

'And you don't think at all,' Regina replied, dragging her nails down Emma's bare back one last time and relishing the shiver that passed through her. 'Like you said – we balance one another out. So one of us has got to be sensible here.'

Emma rolled her eyes. 'That's the worst idea I've ever heard.'

'Really? _Ever_?'

'Well,' Emma thought about it, then leaned forwards to press her smirking lips back against those of the mayor. 'It definitely ranks in the top ten, anyway.'

* * *

Kathryn was asleep on the couch when Regina finally returned home. She hadn't realised it had gotten quite so late. Waking her up with a tentative shake of her shoulder, she thanked her for her help and then finally sent the dozing woman home. Then she climbed the winding staircase in order to kiss her son goodnight.

Henry had obviously attempted to stay up in order to see Regina when she got home: he had failed, however. Still sat upright in his bed with his flashlight on and his book wide open on his lap, his head had fallen forwards onto his chest, and he was fast asleep. Regina stood in the doorway to his room watching him for a moment. Every now and then, especially when he was in bed, Henry looked exactly like the baby that she had collected from Mr Gold all those years ago. It was somehow heart-breaking to see him like that again.

She slipped into the room, taking the flashlight and the book from his hands and placing them on the nightstand. It was only when she was sliding him down in his bed, propping the pillows up beneath his head, that his eyes flickered open.

'Mom,' he mumbled, half sitting up. 'How did it go?'

Regina just smiled, kissing him on his forehead.

'Goodnight, Henry.'

He fell back against his pillows.

'Night, Mom.'

He went back to sleep almost immediately. Regina left the room, leaving the door ajar behind her, and returned to her own bedroom.

She jumped when she saw herself in the mirror: she was flushed, her hair was tangled, and she was smiling like a love-struck adolescent. The make up that she had smeared over that damned hickey on her neck earlier that evening had mostly worn off and was now glaringly obvious, even in the dim light of her bedroom. It was a wonder that Kathryn hadn't picked up on it.

She took a step towards the glass, pushing her hair back from her face. It was odd: she looked… happy. She tried to straighten out her features, leaning closer to the mirror, watching the way that the corners of her mouth would stubbornly spring back upwards any time that she tried to frown. Her olive skin was tinged with pink. Red, swollen lips smirked idiotically back at her, and she forced herself to take a step away from her own reflection.

_You mustn't let yourself get like this_, she told herself as firmly as she could, even as she flopped backwards onto her bed and closed her eyes. _Don't get too attached. Don't turn into one of them._

She fell asleep with her clothes still on. She didn't wake up all night.

* * *

Mary Margaret crept back into the apartment almost an hour after Regina had left. Emma waited for silence to fall, and then she stole down the stairs and began to do her nightly check of the apartment. The doors were locked; the kitchen was clear; the hallway outside was deserted; and Mary Margaret's bedroom was empty apart from the sleeping woman curled up in the centre of the bed with a smile pressed firmly onto her face.

Emma took another look around, checking under the kitchen table another time, just in case. Then she forced herself to climb back up the stairs, shutting her bedroom door behind her and carefully lining up her gun along the edge of her nightstand. She snapped the light off, and the room fell into a familiar darkness.

She slid beneath the covers, staring up at the ceiling. Her left hand crept up after a moment and began to fiddle with the swan necklace that still hung about her throat. For once, the thought of Moe and his clammy fingers and hot breath didn't seem to bother her. She was thinking of another set of hands; another set of lips. But she didn't smile. She stared up at the ceiling and listened to the sound of cars rolling down the street below her window, her necklace remaining fixed in her hand. She inhaled the sharp scent of Regina that still clung about her; that now familiar mix of coffee and expensive perfume and pancake syrup. She didn't sleep, like she always didn't sleep. But that night her restlessness was a little less threatening: it smelled spicy, and it felt like sharp nails raking a possessive line down her spine. It didn't scare her so much, even as she realised that she was already wishing that there was someone there sharing it with her. That same thought struck her over and over again, until the watery sun began to rise.

* * *

_**A/N: **I really hope you liked this chapter! Leave me a review to let me know what you thought :) remember, every 50th reviewer gets a one shot!_

_Also, I LOVE it when you guys send me messages on tumblr, so please come and say hi! **starsthatburn **:)_


	14. Chapter 14

_**A/N: **Again, big delays with this chapter and I'm really really sorry! I caught the flu last week so forming coherent sentences hasn't exactly been one of my strongest skills for a little while... but I got there eventually! So I hope you enjoy :D_

_Also, this story hit **500 followers** today! And I'm not ashamed to say that I cried a little bit. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your comments and suggestions and really just your time. So, TO CELEBRATE - for the next few days, anyone can send me a prompt for a one shot and I'll write it for them. Either PM me on here or send me a message on tumblr (**starsthatburn**) :D_

_Thanks for everything! Kisses x_

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen**

It was at the end of that same week, drawing close to five o'clock on the Friday evening, when the email that Emma had been dreading seeing for nearly two months finally appeared in her inbox.

She clicked on it, holding her breath.

_After the recent break from schedule, the next town council meeting will take place this Wednesday at 9a.m. If you are unable to attend, please contact Sidney Glass to arrange to collect a copy of the meetings' minutes._

Emma collapsed backwards in her chair, her limbs feeling suddenly detached from the rest of her body. Her heart was beating almost calmly, and yet her chest was hurting. It felt bruised.

The first meeting in two months. The first meeting since Moe had ruined absolutely goddamn everything. Emma rubbed a hand over her make up-less eyes. She heard the next ping of her inbox, but it was a few minutes before she allowed herself to look at it.

When she did, she blinked with surprise: it was from Regina. It was the first contact that Emma had had from her since their dinner, or date, or whatever the hell Tuesday night had been, and it only consisted of one line.

_Are you okay?_

Emma paused. She knew that on some level she should be angry – Regina hadn't contacted her in several days, and now here she was, suddenly showing up once more like nothing had changed. And yet Emma found that she couldn't even begin to be annoyed; partially because she was too busy freaking out over the prospect of having to return to City Hall for the first time since a gun had been repeatedly brought down on the side of her face – and partially because she knew that at least Regina was worried about her. She'd obviously known about this meeting for a while but hadn't wanted to mention it. And now that Emma had been informed, the very first thing that she did was check how she was coping with it.

Emma couldn't be annoyed when her head was already a jumble of sheer panic and something that might have been gratitude.

She poised her hands over the keyboard, biting down on her bottom lip. It took her close to ten minutes to formulate a response.

* * *

Across town, Regina's inbox finally pinged in response. She had been leaning back in her chair, her fingernails drumming restlessly against the armrests, her unblinking eyes never leaving the computer screen. The second that the reply came through she leaned forwards, her breath held in her chest as she clicked.

_It had to happen at some point. I'm fine._

She blinked. _That was it? _Regina couldn't pretend that she wasn't disappointed – not only because she hadn't heard from Emma since Tuesday and now this was the only tiny shred of contact that she was offering her; but also because she was absolutely unconvinced by the response in every way. Emma wasn't okay. Regina knew her better than either of them would allow themselves to admit, and she knew that she would be losing her mind. She was lying and Regina couldn't understand why.

Just then, her inbox pinged again. She blinked, clicking on a second response from Emma.

_Are YOU_ _okay?_

That, Regina hadn't been expecting. Why wouldn't she be okay? She hadn't even been at the last meeting – a fact that she hated remembering.

_I'm fine, _she typed in response. _Why wouldn't I be?_

Emma's reply came through a few minutes later.

_I haven't heard from you all week._

Regina frowned.

_I haven't heard from you either._

She held her breath, waiting for Emma to respond. She had a whole pile of papers that she still had to look through before five o'clock came around, and yet they now simply sat by her elbow, completely forgotten. She stared at her full inbox of other emails that still required a response, waiting for the blonde to send her something back.

* * *

_I didn't want to bother you. I thought that you might be freaking out._

**Why do you always assume that I must be freaking out, Miss Swan? I'm absolutely fine.**

_Then why haven't I heard from you?_

…**I imagine for the same reason that I haven't heard from you. I wanted to give you space.**

_I don't need space. I just need to know that you're not annoyed at me._

**Why on earth would I be annoyed at you?**

…_I don't know. Maybe Tuesday didn't go as well for you as it did for me._

**Obviously we must have been on different couches in that case. Tuesday went very well, Miss Swan, I can assure you.**

_It did? Does that mean I get to see you again?_

**All you have to do is ask.**

_I'm doing the asking now? What happened to you chasing me?_

**I beg your pardon, Sheriff, but a Mayor chases no one.**

_So you stalking me around town stapling photos of my face to trees was, what? _

**A serious lapse of judgment.**

_I did love it, you know._

**I'm glad. I was slightly worried that you were going to hit me.**

_Unlikely. I've felt your right hook, remember – I'm not putting myself at risk of another one of those until it's absolutely necessary._

**I'm hardly likely to punch you back given your current condition.**

_Current condition? I'm not an invalid, Regina. My ribs have healed and everything._

**How did we get onto talking about this? I only contacted you to check that you were okay about the meeting.**

_I told you that I'm fine._

**You're lying.**

_I'm not. I'm fine._

**Even by email that phrase grates on me, Miss Swan, so please stop trying to use it. I know you're not. If you don't want to go, I won't blame you.**

_I'll be at the meeting, Regina, I promise. I have to go to it. But I appreciate you checking up on me._

**Someone has to look after you. We both know that you aren't doing it yourself.**

_That's not true! I'm FINE._

**You barely ate half of your dinner on Tuesday.**

_I did eat my dessert though._

**I know. I noticed. I was proud of you.**

_I'm not a child, Regina. I don't need positive reinforcement._

**Are you sure? Tell me that you're not grinning like a little girl right now.**

…_shut up._

**I thought so.**

_You're so annoying._

**The feeling is mutual. I need to get back to work now, Miss Swan.**

_I'm not stopping you. _

**Yes, you are.**

…

**Emma?**

_I thought that a Mayor chased no one?_

**You are **_**infuriating**_**. I'm going back to my paperwork.**

_Enjoy that. Give Henry a kiss from me later._

**I will.**

_You can have one yourself as well, if you like._

**I'll bear that in mind. I'll see you on Wednesday, Emma.**

_See you then._

* * *

On one side of Storybrooke, Emma sat back in her desk chair with a dopey grin plastered across her face. The panic that the first email had set upon her had slowly disappeared, replaced by an inexplicable warmth that could only come from knowing that she and Regina were, miraculously, still okay. She closed her eyes and let her head fall backwards, blonde curls tumbling down the back of the chair.

On the other side of town, Regina placed her hands in her lap and swallowed. The same easy grin that was currently clinging to the sheriff's lips was loosening from her own, leaving her with a slight frown between her eyebrows.

_What are you _doing_, Regina?_

She shook her head to herself. She didn't _know_ what she was doing. She wasn't sure that she really cared, either – and that scared her. She always had a plan, and Emma Swan was an anomaly that had never, nor would ever, fit into it. And yet she didn't seem to mind. She couldn't quite explain why.

* * *

'Emma, are you _sure _you're ready for this?' Mary Margaret asked, watching as Emma threw away the remaining three quarters of her bowl of cereal. Her face was pale that morning; almost yellow from a night of absolutely no sleep. Her blonde hair was scraped back into a raggedy pony tail, the shadows beneath her eyes obvious even from the other side of the kitchen. Mary Margaret watched as she slowly pulled on her red jacket, not looking up at her roommate.

'I'm ready. I'm fine.'

'You don't have to go,' Mary Margaret insisted, taking a step towards her. 'No one will blame you.'

'I know that,' Emma sighed, rubbing a hand over her eyes. 'But if I don't go to this one, then I won't go to the next one. Or the one after that. I'm not falling into that cycle – I can't afford to be afraid of this forever.'

Mary Margaret bit her lip. She was ready to leave for school; her scarf already wrapped around her neck and her books clasped in her arms. But she was reluctant to go. Emma had been making progress, albeit slow and painful progress, up until then: now, she looked startlingly similar to how she had looked the day that she'd returned from the hospital with bruises covering her body and stitches running down her face. She was pale and thin and frightened, and she couldn't bring herself to leave her.

'Emma,' she said slowly, looking down at the floor. '...I'm sorry I haven't been here as much as I could have been. The whole David thing… it's… I've been distracted. And I should have been here for you. And I'm sorry.'

'You don't have to apologise for anything,' Emma said, shrugging. 'Really. You've been patient and you have been here for me, and I've appreciated all of it. I just… I need to do this today, and I need to do it by myself. You don't have anything to feel guilty about.'

'Yes I do.'

Emma threw her a pointed look. 'No, you don't. Despite what Henry says, you're not my mother. You don't have to look after me.'

Her roommate looked sadly back at her, not saying a word.

'Go to work, Mary Margaret,' Emma said, offering her a small smile. 'I'll text you at lunchtime to let you know that I survived it.'

Mary Margaret's face immediately clouded over. 'That's not funny, Em.'

'I didn't mean it like that,' Emma quickly said, shaking her head. 'I just meant… I'll be okay. I'll get through it. Now go to school and stop worrying.'

They walked over to the front door together, Emma reaching for her scarf.

'Okay,' Mary Margaret said with a sigh, heaving the door open. 'If you're sure.'

She turned to leave. She jumped when she realised that Regina was stood right in front of her.

'Regina!' she gasped, her free hand clasping at her chest. 'I mean, Mayor Mills. What are... what can I do for you?'

'I'm here to see Miss Swan,' Regina said, her voice flat. Emma immediately appeared at her roommate's shoulder, barely able to suppress the smile that was tugging at the corners of her mouth.

'Oh,' Mary Margaret said, nodding. Then she quietly asked, 'Why?'

'Because someone has to make sure that our notoriously lax sheriff is actually planning on attending this meeting.'

Emma flinched, but she saw Mary Margaret's tensed shoulders relax slightly: this, at least, was normal.

Her hazel eyes turned to look at where Emma was stood behind her, and the blonde nodded that it was okay for her to leave. She sidled past the mayor, holding her breath, and disappeared down the stairs. Regina quickly entered the apartment, shutting the door behind her.

'Was that really necessary?' Emma huffed, not letting herself meet Regina's gaze because she could already see that she was worriedly taking in the dark circles beneath her eyes. 'You made it sound like I don't want to go to this thing because of pure laziness.'

'Which I believe everyone knows not to be true,' Regina replied, taking a step forwards. One hand left the pocket of her black coat, stretching out as if it was going to take hold of Emma's. Then it faltered, returning to her side with her fingers twitching slightly. 'But someone needed to distract her before she turned around and caught the lovesick puppy expression on your face.'

Emma groaned. 'Oh. Was it obvious?'

'Quite,' Regina said with a smile. 'But that's alright. It's nice to know that you haven't gotten tired of me just yet.'

Emma's eyes finally crawled up to meet Regina's. 'Not exactly.'

Regina's smile slipped after a minute, taking in the sallowness of Emma's skin; the slight grey tinge to her lips. 'You don't look well, Emma.'

'I'm fine.'

'Yes. As you always are,' she sighed, leaning forwards and pressing a surprisingly gentle kiss onto Emma's mouth. When she pulled back again she moved only centimetres away, a frown settling across her forehead as her eyes closely examined the blonde's exhausted face. 'You'd tell me if you really didn't think you could do it, wouldn't you?'

'Of course I would,' Emma said, forcing herself to meet Regina's suspicious gaze. 'Is that why you're here? To talk me out of it?'

'No,' Regina said, taking a step back. She tried to smile, but she still looked worried. 'I knew you'd insist on going. But I also know that it's going to be difficult for you. I just… I thought that you might like some support.'

Emma's face brightened momentarily. 'That's sweet of you, Regina. But people might be a bit suspicious if we show up together.'

Regina nodded her assent. 'True. But if it helps, I can always shout at you and call you an incompetent fool the moment that we walk through the door.'

A snort of laughter escaped from Emma's nose, and suddenly she was falling forwards, pressing her lips back against Regina's. Her hands found their way to the mayor's face, pulling her closer. Regina could feel her mouth smiling as she kissed her back.

'We should go,' Emma sighed when she pulled away again. 'Get this over with.'

'I suppose so.'

Emma quickly adjusted her scarf and pulled on her gloves, taking a deep breath. She looked up to find that the mayor was watching her.

'What?'

Regina offered her a tiny smile. 'Nothing. You're just… you're much braver than I thought.'

Emma half-smiled, but it was tinged with anxiety. 'Well. Maybe. Let's readdress that once the meeting's over, shall we?'

They left the apartment together. Regina longed to reach out and take hold of Emma's hand, but she kept her distance. They reached her Mercedes and drove across town in silence. Regina quickly found that she couldn't focus on the road: her dark eyes were continually drawn to the bouncing knee beside her, the fidgeting fingers in black leather gloves. The sharp intakes of breath that shot through the car with every metre closer to City Hall that they drew.

* * *

The mayor had deliberately requested that the meeting take place in her own office, rather than in its usual location on the ground floor of the building. The long table in her office just about seated the full committee, with Regina taking her normal seat at the head of it. Emma slid into the chair to her right. Ten other people followed them into the room: six of them, including Mrs Carter, the elementary school's vice-principal, had been present at the previous meeting. Every person there looked nervous; most of them fidgeting and constantly glancing around to check that the security guard who had been employed to loiter the hallways of City Hall during the day was still waiting outside the door. Every set of eyes, however, would eventually end up sliding over to watch Emma.

She was forcing herself to remain still, her hands outstretched and holding up the meeting's agenda before her. Her eyes scanned over it, but she wasn't reading it. She wasn't even sure that she could remember how to. She immediately regretted sitting with her back to the door; with Mrs Carter opposite her and directly in her eye line; with her hair tied back so that everybody in the room could see the harsh lines in her sallow face. Her only slight relief came from realising that the only person in the room who would be able see the deep scar on her temple would be the person who was sat directly to her left. That person was Regina.

Sidney eventually arrived to be minute-taker. The only two people in the room who didn't look up to greet him were the blonde and the brunette sat at the far end of the table.

As he took up his position in the corner of the office, Regina slowly drew out her notes and prepared herself to start the meeting. She wasn't sure whether to be concerned or offended when she looked up and realised that the majority of the committee's eyes were still resting on the blonde woman sat to her right.

She cleared her throat.

'As you all know,' she said once she'd managed to draw a dozen pairs of eyes over to herself, 'we've had a short break from the usual meeting schedule recently. For good reason, as I'm… I'm sure you're aware. But we're back here now, and I'm pleased to see such a good turn out. So, I'll be handing over the reigns to Mrs Carter now, to briefly discuss Storybrooke Elementary's plans to introduce a Go Green initiative.'

Emma could already feel her eyes glazing over: discussions like this were the exact reason why she had rarely found herself attending these meetings when she had first become sheriff. For such a small town, Storybrooke certainly had enough mundane issues to endlessly ponder over, and they quite simply did not interest her. She didn't need to hear about how the school kitchens were starting to use food recycling bins. She had dragged herself to this meeting to try and overcome her fears about it, and now she already found herself wishing that she hadn't, simply because being trapped in her office like a frightened child was undoubtedly preferable to being quite this bored.

Her knees were fidgeting below the table. Every few minutes they would bump against Regina's, but the mayor's face remained completely passive.

_She looks bored too_, Emma noted as she sneaked a glance across at her after about twenty minutes. Regina didn't give away her emotions very easily, but Emma still recognised that unimpressed pursing of her red lips. She smirked to herself, briefly considering passing her a note: this meeting was due to go on for another couple of hours at least, and Emma needed to do something to keep her sane. Distracting the mayor was definitely one way of passing the time.

Then a loud bang came from the hallway, and the discussion immediately ceased. Emma spun around in her seat, her skin suddenly sickly and white; her eyes frantically seeking out the doorway.

'What was that?' someone on the other side of the table asked. They hadn't been at the previous meeting, but the shake in their voice was still unmistakable.

Emma was frozen, watching the door. Over the sound of her crashing heartbeat she realised that she could hear disgruntled muttering coming from the hallway, interspersed with the sound of something being gathered up from the floor. And yet she still couldn't move. The walls had moved closer to her, and they were trapping her in her seat.

The chair to Emma's left scraped backwards as Regina suddenly stood up.

'_Claude_,' she called out. She didn't sound afraid – she simply sounded furious.

The newly employed security guard reluctantly opened the door and stuck his head around it. In his arms he was carrying a stack of papers.

'Madame Mayor?'

'What the hell is going on out there?' she asked through gritted teeth. Her eyes flicked down for a split second to glance at the woman sat below her – even from the back of Emma's head, she could see that her whole body had seized up. Her shoulders was tense and her knuckles were white.

'I'm so sorry, Mayor Mills,' the man muttered, shifting the papers in his arms. 'Your receptionist asked me to carry a box downstairs for her, but the bottom gave out and—'

'Claude, you were employed to patrol the hallways,' Regina interrupted, her voice sharp and full of acid. '_Not _to act as a removal man. Leave the papers where they are, and deal with them when the meeting is over.'

'…yes, Madame Mayor.' The door closed, and the room fell silent.

Regina slowly sat back down again. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Emma forced herself to swivel back round in her chair. Her green eyes were fixed firmly on the agenda that was still lying in front of her, but Regina knew that they were filling with tears. Her chest was heaving up and down.

'Mrs Carter,' Regina said, turning to the woman sat to her left. 'I apologise for the interruption – if you'd like to continue.'

The discussion went on. Emma didn't look up.

She felt like the room had filled with water, and she was bobbing on the tide like a cork. Her fists had reached down at some point and were clinging onto the sides of her seat, so tightly that her nails were starting to hurt. But she didn't let go, because if she did then the water would pull her under and she knew that she'd drown. The conversation went on around her, roaring like the tide, and she heard none of it. That bang from the hallway was still echoing through her skull and suddenly she could feel breath on her neck again. The cold metal of a gun wasn't far behind.

And then something touched her hand. She swallowed, glancing down to find that Regina had reached under the table and grabbed hold of it. Tightly. As she squeezed she looked calmly across the table at whoever was speaking, slowly beginning to uncurl Emma's fingers one by one away from the seat of the chair. When Emma finally released her grip, she felt those cool fingers lace through hers. They squeezed once more.

The tide began to subside. Emma closed her eyes and forced herself to take a breath. Regina's hand grounded her. The tight balloon of air inside her chest slowly began to deflate and she let herself look around the table: everyone was calm. No one was shouting. No one was quivering under the table with a gun pointed at the back of their head. Regina was holding onto her and everything was okay.

* * *

The meeting finally ended at lunchtime. The group left the mayor's office, carefully picking their way over the reams of paper that were still lying on the floor outside, and began to disperse across the lawn outside of City Hall. Emma was already outside by the time that most of them made it through the doors.

She threw herself onto the nearest bench, leaning forwards against her knees with her head pressed into her hands. Her chest was still hurting. She knew that people were looking at her as they walked past, and she could hear them muttering about her. But no one approached her. She stayed sitting there for as long as it took for her eyes to stop stinging and her palms to stop sweating.

When she looked up, she jumped. Regina was stood several feet away, her hands in her pockets, watching her.

'How long have you been standing there?' Emma croaked out.

Regina just looked at her for a moment. The blonde's face was almost yellow, and she looked dangerously close to fainting. She took a step closer.

'A while,' she said. 'I wanted to check that you were okay, but you didn't look quite ready for talking.'

Emma offered her a weak smile, but said nothing.

'You're not going to try and tell me that you're fine?' Regina asked, walking over and sitting down beside her.

Emma looked down at her knees. 'Would you believe me?'

'I never believe you.'

'Then no,' she sighed, leaning back. 'I'm not going to say it.'

Silence fell. Regina watched Emma's green eyes as they flitted around her surroundings, examining every person who walked past and squinting anxiously any time that someone looked back at her. Huddled up against the back of the bench, she looked pathetic. She looked like she did the night when Regina had arrived to check on her and had ended up putting her to bed, waiting with her until she fell asleep.

'I'm sorry for overreacting,' Emma finally sighed, turning to face the woman sat next to her. 'I… I panicked. I didn't mean to.'

'You don't have to apologise,' Regina said, crossing her legs over. 'Claude's an idiot. He always has been.'

'I thought you only just hired him?' Emma asked. Regina froze.

'I did,' she quickly said, forcing a casual shrug. 'But trust me, he's been useless since day one. I'd be better off hiring Mr Gold to patrol the halls.'

'Mr Gold is good with a cane,' Emma said, almost smiling. 'No gunman would want to take him on.'

'That is true,' Regina said, raising one eyebrow. 'Maybe I should pitch it to him. Getting out of that shop might cheer him up a bit.'

Emma laughed, curling her legs up beneath her. As they both fell quiet again a few moments later, looking out across the now deserted lawn, Regina glanced back across at Emma: the lines around her mouth had returned.

'Do you want me to take you home, Miss Swan?'

Emma jumped, looking back at her. 'No. Why?'

'I thought you might want to take the rest of the day off,' Regina said quietly, trying to keep her face from betraying just how concerned she actually was. 'I won't mind.'

'No. I'm…' Emma stopped herself just short of saying the word that she knew made Regina's teeth ache. 'It's okay. I have work that needs doing. It's alright.'

'Are you sure?' Regina muttered, tilting her head to one side. 'You don't look—'

'I'm sure,' Emma interrupted, suddenly standing up. Regina's heart dropped for a moment, expecting Emma to storm off and then to not speak to her for the rest of the week. But then a slightly trembling hand was outstretched, and a weak smile was thrown her way. 'But thanks for the offer.'

Regina reached out, took the hand, and stood up to join her.

She didn't realise that she hadn't released the sheriff's fingers from between her own until Emma suddenly glanced over her shoulder, froze, and dropped them like she'd burned her.

'August,' Emma stammered, forcing a smile onto her face. Regina immediately snapped her head around, finding the man in question stood a few paces behind her with a glint in his eye. It made her stomach hurt.

'Hey, Emma,' he said, taking a step forwards. He nodded at Regina. 'Madame Mayor.'

'Mr Booth,' Regina responded through gritted teeth.

'What are you doing here?' Emma asked, inching away from Regina with that same, cautious smile still plastered across her lips.

'I was going to ask if I could buy you lunch,' he said, his eyes travelling back towards where the mayor was stood uncomfortably watching them. 'But it looks like you're busy.'

'I'm not busy,' Emma said with a shake of her head. 'But I'm okay for lunch. I have some work I need to do.'

Without a word, August produced something from behind his back: it was a take-out bag from Granny's.

Emma smiled without meaning to. 'Ah. I suppose I have no choice then, do I?'

'Doesn't look like it.'

'We can eat at the station,' she said. 'You go. I'll meet you there.'

August nodded, then flicked his bright eyes back over to Regina. He smiled his usual, wicked smile, and then he left without saying a word.

'Sorry,' Emma said quietly, thrusting her hands into her pockets. 'I haven't seen him in a while. I didn't know he was going to—'

'It's alright, Miss Swan,' Regina said, forcing a smile. It was strained and fooled neither of them. 'Go and have some lunch. You look like you could use it.'

She inclined her head slightly, looking startlingly like a queen excusing herself from her court, and then turned to leave. A hand reached out and grabbed at her elbow before she could walk away.

'Don't do that,' Emma said.

'Do what?'

'Get all suspicious. It's only August – he's my friend. Sometimes I wouldn't even call him that. It's okay.'

'I am allowed to be suspicious of a man who shows an unusual amount of interest in my son regardless of how many times I ask him to stay away from him, Miss Swan,' Regina muttered, pulling her arm away.

Emma smirked. 'Ah. _That's _why you don't like him, is it?'

'Why else wouldn't I?'

'No reason,' Emma said, wetting her lips. Regina's eyes automatically fell down to look at them. 'None at all.'

'Stop being so self-centred,' Regina said, her eyes still not moving.

'I will when you stop being so obvious,' Emma sniggered, leaning forwards slightly. Regina jumped, half expecting to be kissed and half wishing that she would be. 'August and I are just friends. You don't have to panic.'

'I'm not panicking,' Regina grumbled. 'Be friends with whoever you want. And stop _looking _at me like that, what if somebody sees you?'

'I've always looked at you like this,' Emma muttered, her eyes drifting down to the hollow of the mayor's throat. 'It was just always passed off as hatred before now.'

'Much like how I'm looking at you right now, then?'

Emma snorted. 'Keep telling yourself that, Madame Mayor. Maybe it'll stop you from wanting me to kiss you so badly.'

Regina jumped. _That woman. _'I do _not_—'

'Whatever, Regina,' Emma bit down on her bottom lip, still smirking. 'I'll see you later.'

She turned on her heel and walked off in the same direction that August had a few moments before. Regina watched her go, her hands bunched up into fists, trying to convince herself that she wasn't jealous. She was a queen: queens did not get jealous, they did not feel threatened, and they did not lose anything to men with poorly maintained facial hair.

She huffed to herself, waiting until Miss Swan had disappeared from sight before marching back into City Hall. Her lips were hurting like she had been kissed after all. She stormed past Claude, who had finally cleared up the mess that he had made, and shut her office door behind her.

She couldn't concentrate for the next hour. Somewhere across town, Emma Swan was having lunch with a man, and the thought of it made her temples burn. She threw her own lunch into the trash in disgust, leaning back in her chair with her eyes raised to the ceiling.

_He has no right to her_, she found herself thinking, shaking her head. _Emma Swan belongs to no one. She certainly doesn't belong to him._


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

'Out with it,' Emma said the moment that she arrived at the sheriff station to find August lounging back in a chair waiting for her. 'Why are you looking so smug?'

'What? I'm not smug,' August said. 'This is just my face.'

'Then you have an obnoxious face and you need to do something about it,' Emma replied, perching herself on the edge of her desk and reaching out to snatch the take-out bag from between his fingers. 'What did you get me?'

'Grilled cheese,' he said. 'And fries.'

'Trying to fatten me up?'

'Definitely,' he said with complete sincerity. She rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

Scooting herself further back onto the desk, she unwrapped the now lukewarm sandwich and took a bite out of it. Like most things, it still tasted like cardboard in her mouth. But she was slowly convincing herself that she could eat more, that she should eat more, and so she forced herself to finish most of it. August watched her the whole while, his blue eyes unwavering.

'It's really hard to enjoy this with you staring at me, you know,' she said after a few minutes, balling up the wrapper with the remnants of the sandwich still inside.

He laughed. 'You weren't enjoying it anyway. But I'm glad you ate it.'

'Thanks for getting it for me,' she said, pulling her legs up onto the desk and crossing them. 'Now. Are you going to tell me what that irritating expression on your face is all about or not?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' he said, that smirk on his lips only growing wider. Emma rolled her eyes.

'August, come on,' she moaned. 'Enough games. Why are you looking so pleased with yourself?'

August leaned back in his chair, pulling a handful of fries out of the bag in his lap but not bringing them to his lips. 'You and Regina.'

'...what about us?'

'You're friends now.'

Emma's racing heart slowed down ever so slightly. 'Well... I suppose you could say that.'

'I'm just happy for you,' he said, putting the fries into his mouth and starting to chew. 'This is good. For both of you. You could do with another friend, and Regina could do with one to begin with. And Henry… Henry could do with his mothers not hating each other. I'm just happy that things are starting to work out.'

Emma was watching him closely as he spoke, taking in that sharp glint of excitement in his eyes along with the way that the rest of his face was remaining suspiciously expressionless in comparison. She frowned.

'No,' she said slowly, leaning forwards. 'That's not it. You're up to something.'

But August only smiled, his eyes creasing at the corners. 'What could I _possibly _have to gain from you and the mayor becoming friends, Emma?'

'I have no idea. Why don't you tell me?'

'I really hate to break it to you,' he said, still smiling, 'but you're reading way too much into this. I just want you to be happy – and I want Henry to be happy too. He's a good kid and he deserves it, and so do you. That's all there is to it.'

A faint alarm was ringing inside Emma's head. He was lying to her; that much was clear. But about what… she had absolutely no idea.

'Right,' she said after a few more moments of examining him, her eyes narrowing. 'If you say so.'

He raised his eyebrows, and then he put the bag with the remainder of the fries on the desk beside Emma.

'I should go,' he said, getting up and stretching out his arms. 'Things to do.'

'What things?' Emma asked with a hint of derision.

'Writerly things,' he replied. 'Inspiration has suddenly struck. Hard to say why.'

Emma glowered at him, leaving the fries untouched as she watched him walk towards the doorway of the office. Just as she knew he would, he turned around just as he reached the threshold.

'You looked good together, by the way.'

Emma jumped in her seat. 'What?'

'You and Regina,' August said, his voice easy and calm. 'When I saw you today – you suit one another. Like the blonde and the brunette who were always told off for giggling at the back of class.'

When Emma didn't respond, her eyebrows knitted fiercely together, he just shrugged.

'I'm not implying anything,' he said, watching the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. 'I just mean that you look like you could be good friends. That's all.'

'You could tell that just from looking at us?' Emma asked, her voice still humming with distrust.

August laughed. 'I'm a writer – it's my job to be observant.'

And then there was a beat where he just looked at her; where in half a second the air went from pulsating to still and Emma felt her chest restrict like an elastic band had forced its way around it. August still smiled, but it was different: just for a second, he was smiling because he knew something. And before Emma could leap across the room to slam him against the wall, demanding that he tell her exactly what it was, he had disappeared down the hallway.

She remained cross-legged on top of her desk; a bag of cold fries sat by her hip as her heart beat out a furious, screaming rhythm against the inside of her ribcage.

* * *

As Emma forced down her dinner that night, she could feel her roommate's eyes on her. Mary Margaret was eating less than even she was, her plate of food mostly untouched before her, and the only thing that Emma could do to stop herself from meeting her suspicious eye and being forced to engage in a conversation that she did not want to have was to keep shovelling tasteless food between her own lips, her gaze planted firmly on the table between them.

But, as it always did, the conversation that she didn't want to have happened anyway.

'Why did Regina really come round this morning?'

The question was quiet and flat, like the air slowly being released from a sinking balloon. It hit Emma like a train even so.

'You know why,' she responded, still not looking up. 'She wanted to make sure that I was going to the meeting.'

There was a pause, and Emma could feel two hazel eyes burning holes through her thin green shirt.

'Regina's not as good a liar as she thinks she is, you know,' Mary Margaret said quietly, almost conversationally. 'But you're even worse.'

Finally, Emma forced herself to meet her roommate's gaze. 'What?'

'There are two reasons why Regina would not have come round to force you to go to that meeting,' Mary Margaret said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms across her chest. 'One: if she really has that little faith in you, then that means that she hasn't changed. If she hasn't changed then there is no way that she'd come _to your apartment _to make sure that she was right. She'd go to the meeting herself, wait for you to not appear, then she'd belittle you, undermine you and mock you for the foreseeable future because you're just as inept as she always thought you were.'

Emma blinked. 'I don't—'

'And two,' the brunette interrupted her, tilting her head to one side. 'Because she _has _changed. Because she does have faith in you. And because when I opened that door her face was concerned, not angry, and even she couldn't hide that quick enough behind her usual veil of absolute contempt.'

Emma shook her head slightly. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I'm not an idiot, Emma,' Mary Margaret said softly. 'I know I've been distracted with the whole David thing, but… even I can see that things have changed here. She doesn't hate you. She's looking out for you. I'm still unsure as to _why _she is… but this is good. It's great, really. I just want to know why you're trying to hide it from me.'

'I'm not hiding anything,' Emma said, shrugging. But her roommate only raised an eyebrow at her, saying nothing in response.

Emma heard herself sigh. She hadn't planned to say what she said next, and yet she heard the words escaping from her lips nonetheless.

'…I think we might be friends.'

'Really?' Mary Margaret's eyebrows shot upwards. 'You and Regina Mills?'

'I know,' Emma said, smiling slightly. Her heart was hammering a bassline against the inside of her ribcage but she forced herself to ignore it – if she could keep a straight face through this conversation then she could do absolutely anything. 'It seems unlikely.'

'That's one way of putting it,' Mary Margaret folded her arms across the edge of the table and leaned forwards. 'How did… how did that come about?'

That was one question that Emma genuinely did not know how to answer.

'I'm not really sure,' she said, picking up her fork and dangling it between her thumb and forefinger. 'She felt guilty, initially. But since then… I don't know. It just turns out that we're not actually as different as I always thought we were. And she... she makes me laugh.'

At this, Mary Margaret jumped in her seat. 'She does?'

'Yeah,' Emma replied, wrinkling her nose. 'Weird, isn't it?'

'That's definitely one word for it,' her roommate replied. 'I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm glad that things are looking up. And I have to say that I of all people appreciate this new side to her – since she stopped hating you she hasn't stormed into my class to interrupt my lesson even once. She's definitely become less… tempestuous.'

Emma suppressed a tiny smile of pride at this admission. But then she heard her roommate sigh.

'But, Emma… I just want to make sure that you're being careful.'

Emma frowned. 'Careful? What do you mean?'

'Regina is tricky,' Mary Margaret said, not blinking. 'We both know that. She has issues and she gets angry and she can give glare that would scare anybody senseless. It's definitely better to have her as a friend than as an enemy.'

'Right,' Emma said slowly. 'I don't see your point.'

'My point is that I want you to be a little bit wary,' Mary Margaret said. 'It's great that you two are getting along. But… if things were to go wrong, and if you fell out… it could get messy. No one takes rejection worse than Regina does. I mean, look at what happened when Graham chose you over her – she completely lost it. I just don't want you to get hurt again, Emma, that's all. You've been hurt more than enough recently. I just… I want you to be careful. Try not to let Regina get under your skin.'

Emma felt her face freeze. '…Alright. I won't.'

Her roommate smiled, but she still looked worried. 'Okay. Good.'

Finally Mary Margaret went back to her food. All of a sudden it was Emma's turn to sit and watch her eat, her fork still dangling from her fingers, with her jaw set in a tight line of anxiety. She knew that Mary Margaret was right – getting close to Regina would always be dangerous, regardless of the circumstances. Regina was a hurricane, and Emma was deliberately placing herself in her path. If anything went wrong, even what Moe did to her wouldn't be able to compare to the hurt that she would feel as a result.

And yet… she didn't find herself worrying about it. A woman who lives a life without a light switch snatches up whatever light is offered to her. Regina was a match in a darkened room. It could blow out at any second and plummet her back into the shadows once more, but she was already addicted to what little light and warmth it did offer. She couldn't pretend that she wasn't drawn to it.

Emma sucked in a breath through her teeth, looking down at her lap: maybe the match would blow out. But maybe, before it did, its light would help her to find her light switch at last. Maybe Regina was going to be the one to lead her to it after all.

Or maybe she would flicker out, leaving her alone. The same way that everyone else did.

* * *

Regina could feel Henry's eyes on her as she worked. They were sat on opposite sides of the dining room table, Henry doing his homework while Regina attempted to reply to her ever-growing list of emails. But her son was distracted, and his pencil hadn't moved in some time. Eventually the mayor dragged her eyes up from the screen of her laptop, looking over the top of her glasses.

'Do you need some help, Henry?' she asked, gesturing towards his half-finished homework.

He ignored her question. He just smiled.

'You're different now, you know.'

Regina frowned. 'Sorry?'

'You've been changing. You're… you're happier.'

'Am I?'

'Yeah. Since you and Emma stopped shouting at each other. You smile more now and you've let me have dessert twice this week, which you never normally do. It's good. I like you better this way.'

Regina felt her lips quirk upwards, even as she felt a part of her heart breaking when she realised exactly what Henry must have thought of living with her prior to this moment.

'I see,' she said, slowly pulling her glasses away from her face. 'So… Miss Swan and I being friends. You do really want this?'

'Of course,' he said. 'And not just because—'

He stopped himself mid-sentence, a worried frown that so reminded Regina of the blonde woman in question settling across his forehead.

'Not just because what?' she prompted.

'Not just because… I want to be able to see you both,' he mumbled. 'But because you two _should _be friends. You're really similar and you both want the same things.'

'Do we?' she asked with some interest. 'And what are they?'

'Happiness,' he replied with a small shrug. Like it was that simple. 'And family. If you two are friends, then you get both. I don't see how that can be a bad thing.'

Regina only blinked for a moment. Because, she realised, he was, in a way… right. Even if his reasoning was a little bit simplistic.

'So,' she said, glancing down at her laptop for a moment. 'If we were to have her over for dinner again… you'd like that?'

'I'd love that,' he said, grinning at his mother. She smiled in response.

'Okay,' she said, leaning back in her chair. 'Then I'll try and get that sorted for you.'

She watched as her son's face lit up, eyeing her with a kind of gratitude that she hadn't seen from him in months. Maybe even years. Her lips quirked upwards just as a sudden sharpness started to prick at her eyes.

'It's getting late,' she said after a few moments. 'Did you finish your homework?'

'Most of it. But it's not due until Friday.'

'Okay then. Off to bed.'

He scrambled up from his chair, leaving his books in a neat pile at the edge of the table. As he scurried past his mother, he paused. Then, almost tentatively, he turned back and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She felt a sudden warmth against her cheek as he pressed a kiss there.

'Goodnight, Mom,' he said, turning back to the stairs and thundering up them. Regina was left sitting alone at the table with her old laptop gently whirring away in front of her; her heart beating fiercely against the inside of her chest.

She knew how much her son loved the fact that she and Emma were now, apparently, friends. She knew that this was making him happy – and that should have been enough for her. But if there was one thing that Regina Mills was, it was a realist. She may not have been able to see the future in the same way that Rumple could, but that didn't mean that she wasn't naïve enough to not see just how badly it could potentially go.

Too many thoughts were ricocheting around inside her skull and there was only one person that she wanted to talk to about them. She reached out for her phone.

_I need to see you_.

The reply from Emma came back only seconds later. _Now? Is everything okay?_

Regina sucked in a breath, forcing down the nerves that were rising in her throat.

_Yes. I just need to speak to you._

Emma didn't hesitate in her response. It was one thing that Regina had always liked about her.

_I'll be round in a minute_.

Regina dropped the phone back to the table and sighed.

She wasn't even sure what she was going to say to Emma once she got there. The nervous thoughts bouncing around in her brain were a scrambled haze of nonsense and she didn't have the first clue how she was planning on articulating them. All she knew was that she needed Emma. She couldn't believe that she was admitting it to herself, but she needed Emma to help her make sense of them.

_This could all go so wrong_, she said to herself, resting her head in her hands for a moment. _This could break all of us_.

She knew what Emma would say to that, even without her being there. She could see her sad frown, her green eyes as they turned misty. Her pale hand reaching out to touch her own.

'Or it could fix us,' she would say, the corners of her mouth spiking downwards even as she smiled. Regina knew all of that. But she still needed to hear her say it.

* * *

_**A/N: Sorry for the short update guys - the next one will be longer with lots more SQ, I promise!**_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

'Is everything okay?' Emma asked as Regina led her through the house and into her office. 'You're acting kind of weird.'

'I'm fine, dear,' Regina said, offering her a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. It made Emma wince. 'Can I get you a drink?'

'Um. Sure.'

Regina shut the door behind them and glided across the office to fill up two tumblers with scotch. Sitting herself down in what she now thought of as her seat in that room, Emma could only watch her.

Regina eventually sat down on the couch opposite and held one of the glasses out. Emma took it from her, but their fingers didn't brush. For a lack of anything else to do with her hands, she found herself sipping at her drink: it was a taste that would forever remind her of Regina, and yet tonight she couldn't bring herself to enjoy it. It was suddenly bitter in her mouth. There was a knot forming inside her chest, tightening with every cool look that Regina threw her way, until it felt like her heart was a clenched fist that was trying to break through her ribcage.

She replaced the glass on the coffee table with a crack. Regina didn't react to the sound.

'Regina, why am I here?' she blurted out.

Regina's expression never changed. 'I wanted to talk to you.'

'Okay,' Emma responded, raising her eyebrows. 'That's fine. But, so far, you're not doing very much talking.'

Regina smiled then. A real, genuine Regina smile that made Emma's stomach quiver in a very different way.

'That's because I'm not really sure what I want to say.'

'Okay,' Emma said. 'Did you… have a topic in mind?'

'Yes, Emma, I did manage that much.'

'Go ahead then.' Emma leaned back, her leather jacket creaking as she folded her arms over. 'Hit me.'

Regina nodded. She suddenly looked uncomfortable – it was another expression that didn't suit her. Emma wanted so badly to leap up and wrap her arms around her, but she forced herself to remain seated. She knew that Regina was rehearsing her lines in her head, getting the delivery exactly right so that she wouldn't make a mistake. The perfect politician. If Emma interrupted, it would only delay everything.

'Emma,' Regina finally said, letting the word be carried by a heavy exhalation of breath. 'I've been thinking… about us. About you, and about me.'

Emma flinched. 'Okay… what about us?'

'About our situation. I'm just a bit… concerned.'

Emma couldn't help the shake in her voice when she next spoke. 'Did I do something wrong? Is this about August?'

'What?' Regina blinked, then shook her head. 'No. Of course not. Nothing's changed and I told you, I don't care in the slightest about that man. No – I'm concerned about us. Just us.'

'Well. Okay,' Emma said slowly. 'Care to elaborate?'

Finally, Regina's marble politician mask slipped from her face. Beneath it she looked exhausted and, most disconcertingly, slightly guilty. Emma frowned.

'What do you think we're doing, Miss Swan?' she asked.

'You mean, together?'

'Yes. What do you see me as? Your friend? Your… crush? Your latest challenge?'

Emma raised one eyebrow but chose not to respond to this last comment. 'Honestly, Regina? I have no idea.'

'None whatsoever?'

'No.' Emma smiled slightly, reaching back out for her drink. 'I know that I should be able to put some kind of label on it. But… I don't know. It seems way too complicated to try and define it like that. I just see you as someone who I'm spending time with. Someone who I find really, annoyingly attractive. Someone who is freaking me out right now because she's acting like something's really wrong but I don't know what it is.'

'Nothing's wrong, Emma,' Regina sighed, blushing a little at the compliment that she had just been handed so easily. Like, to Emma, it was the truest and therefore the simplest thing in the world. 'I promise. Like I said – I've just been thinking. Because I've been trying to put a label on it… and I found that I couldn't.'

'Does it really need one?'

'I'm not sure,' Regina admitted. 'Perhaps not. But I'm used to everything having a label. I'm a bit too high-maintenance to just kick it freestyle.'

Emma grinned at this. Then she took a deep breath. 'Regina… look. If you want to call us something, then that's fine by me. I don't mind. But, here's the thing: I don't need a label, because I just _know_. I mean… I know that you're making me happy. I like to listen to you calling me an idiot, and when you're not showing up at my office or scaring the shit out of Mary Margaret by appearing unannounced outside our front door, then that day's just a little bit less interesting. I know that, ever since the whole Moe thing happened… you make me feel safe. It's like you're the one who rescued me. You make me excited and nervous all at once, you make me laugh even when I really don't want to, and you make me happy because I know that I'm somehow making _you _happy. And you haven't been happy in a long time. And it makes me happy that I'm changing that, and I… I'm rambling. I don't… I just don't really think there's a label that we can put on that. Do you?'

Regina's expression had softened, her eyebrows curving upwards as her face broke into a sad smile. 'No. Perhaps not.'

Emma leaned forwards against her knees. 'But if you feel differently… if this is something else to you. Then, I don't know. Maybe—'

'No,' Regina interrupted, vehemently shaking her head. 'No, Emma, I don't feel differently. Please stop panicking. I'm just overthinking things.'

'So why am I here?' Emma asked, her head tilting to one side. 'If you're not having second thoughts… what's wrong?'

'I've just been thinking…' Regina paused to clear her throat, her gaze falling to the coffee table between them. 'I've just been wondering how sensible this all is. That's all.'

Emma blinked. 'Sensible,' she repeated slowly.

'Yes. I have to wonder if we're... thinking ahead.'

'Regina,' Emma said, frowning. 'Jesus. This isn't a business transaction, you know: this is a _relationship_. And, as far as I'm aware, no relationship is "sensible". They're messy and dangerous and scary as shit. They're _supposed _to be. It's meant to be terrifying and endless – it's like falling with your feet on the ground. That's the whole point of them.'

Regina sighed. 'But, Emma. I think that we need to consider the potential for… for how easily this could go wrong.'

'I know,' Emma said simply. 'I've already been thinking about it.'

Regina blinked. 'You have?'

'Yeah. About the absolute apocalypse that would probably happen. How neither of us would recover. How the whole town would probably go up in flames.'

'And about… Henry,' Regina added quietly. She watched as Emma blinked.

'Ah,' she said resignedly, her body slumping backwards against the couch. 'So _that's_ what this is about.'

Regina sighed, leaning forwards. 'Emma… listen. Henry desperately wants us to be friends. We had another conversation about it this evening – he's ecstatic that we actually seem to be getting along now. So if we keep this up and we manage to keep him from getting hurt, then that's wonderful. But… if it _doesn't _end well – which, let's face it, seems like the far more likely outcome – Emma, I can't begin to imagine how badly that would hurt him. He needs us to get along. What he doesn't need is for us to be secretly fooling around behind everybody's backs, only to then split up and go right back to hating one another again. I don't think he'd be able to recover from that any more than we would be able to. I'm just thinking… maybe we need to try and be responsible about this. Maybe we should try and... calm things down a bit.'

Emma would have frowned, or snapped at her that she was being stupid, or even stormed out of the house entirely with tears scratching at her eyes. Something stopped her, however: it was the look on Regina's face. The look that told her that every word that she had just said had tasted poisonous to her. She may have believed what she was saying – but that didn't meant that she agreed with it. In fact, she looked so dangerously close to tears that Emma couldn't help but sigh.

'That's all true, Regina. I'm not going to argue with that,' she admitted, smiling weakly. 'But, the problem is… you can't just calm down feelings. They don't work that way. I do want to be friends with you – I promise you, I do. But I also really, _really _want to kiss you right now. And that's not something that I can just turn off for the sake of one day being able to take our son to Taco Bell without getting into a screaming match in middle of the parking lot.'

'We are _not _taking Henry to Taco Bell, Miss Swan.'

'Really?' Emma raised an eyebrow. 'That's the part of that sentence that you're choosing to focus on?'

When Regina only sighed in response, Emma found herself getting to her feet and walking around to the other side of the coffee table. Regina didn't react when the blonde sat down next to her, barely leaving an inch of space between their thighs.

'If I can help it,' Emma said softly, not reaching out to touch her but desperately wanting to, 'I really will try not to hurt you. I'll do everything that I can to keep you safe. But, Regina… I can't promise that something isn't going to go wrong. Neither of us can. We're a pair of basket cases with serious anger issues and, the chances are, something's going to explode at some point. But you're right: as long as we can promise each other to keep Henry out of it… then maybe _we_ can come out of it okay.'

'Keeping him out of it seems unlikely, Miss Swan,' Regina muttered, her eyes fixed on where her fingers were tangling together in her lap. 'He's rather perceptive, as you know. He's not going to stay in the dark for very long.'

'Then maybe he'll be happy about it?'

'Or maybe he'll be even more confused about this than I am,' Regina choked out. Emma realised with a wince that she was close to tears. 'Emma, I've never spoken to him about any of this… about love, or about women, or about how two women can…'

Her sentence wisped off into nothing. Emma sighed.

'He's a good kid, Regina,' she said quietly, reaching out to take hold of Regina's fidgeting fingers beneath her own. 'You raised him that way. Besides, if a kid can believe in real-life fairy tales then he can certainly believe in two women being together. It's hardly ridiculous in comparison.'

Regina almost laughed. Eventually her dark eyes, glossy with tears, turned to look at where Emma was watching her. She could see white teeth anxiously nibbling at a sharply downturned bottom lip.

'Why are _you _so calm about this?' she asked.

Emma snorted. 'I'm not. I'm terrified.'

'You don't look terrified.'

'That's because this relationship only has room for so much crazy at one time,' she said. 'You're still helping me to get through the Moe thing. I want to help you get through this.'

'Through what?'

'_This_,' Emma said, leaning forwards. 'This panic. This feeling that everything's going to go wrong because everything always goes wrong. Because, you know, it might not – we might battle through it. There's always that chance.'

'With the rest of the town sticking their eager little noses in?' Regina scoffed. 'I highly doubt it.'

'Luckily, then, I have absolutely no intention of telling anyone else,' Emma said. Regina blinked.

'You don't?'

'No,' Emma said firmly.

Regina couldn't suppress the sigh of relief that escaped from her lips. 'Thank goodness for that.'

'Oh. Ashamed of me, are you, Madame Mayor?' Emma asked with a hint of a smirk.

'No,' Regina shook her head. She sighed as she admitted, 'I'm ashamed of me.'

It took a moment for Emma to register that it was still the mayor sat beside her once she'd realised just how small she looked then. She did look ashamed: she also look dejected, and utterly hopeless. Like she knew that happiness was just in her reach, but she was too afraid to raise her hand to it.

'You don't want to let yourself be happy,' Emma said slowly. It wasn't a question. '…why?'

'Maybe I don't deserve it.'

'Well, that's bullshit,' Emma said, raising one eyebrow. 'Come on, Regina – look at me. Look at the _state _of me. I don't love, and I don't trust, and I don't let other people into my life: that's always been my thing. Keeping people out is the one thing that I've always been good at. And yet I'm trying to pull you in right now – I'm trying to let us both be happy for once. Do you really want to let some inexplicable inferiority complex and some panicked notion of how messy this _could _get ruin that?'

'No,' Regina sighed. 'Emma. I don't want to push you out. I'm not trying to. I'm just trying to be realistic – I'm trying to be sensible.'

'Well, stop it. I hate it,' Emma said simply. 'Look at me, Regina – _look_ at me.'

When she did, Emma could have cried over how sorry she looked.

'Right now,' Emma lowered her voice, reaching out to tuck a strand of dark hair behind the mayor's ear, 'do you want to kiss me?'

Regina bit at her bottom lip, saying nothing.

'Regina. Please answer me.'

A strangled moan came from her throat as she forced herself to respond. 'You know that I do.'

'Then why are you stopping yourself?'

'Because it's not a good idea.'

'Right,' Emma rolled her eyes, trailing her fingers down the side of Regina's face. 'You know what else isn't a good idea? Terrorising everyone in town when you're having a bad day. Not letting Henry eat any candy _ever_. Pushing feelings down because you're too scared of facing them. But you still do every single one of those on a daily basis and they don't seem to bother you at all.'

When Regina only frowned in response, Emma sighed. She closed her eyes for a moment.

'The worst is over, Regina – you've already let me in. It's too late to do anything about it now. I know about all of this crap that you put yourself through and I _know _that I'm probably going to get hurt. But I also know that there's a small chance that I might not. And that's enough to make me want to kiss you even in spite of what a crazy, malicious bitch I know that you can be.'

Regina couldn't help but laugh. 'You're really not much of a smooth talker, are you?'

She melted at the crinkle that formed on one side of Emma's nose when she smirked in response. 'No. But you still want to kiss me though, don't you?'

'Absolutely not.'

'I don't believe you,' Emma said, tilting her head to one side. Regina leaned towards her.

'That's always been your problem, dear,' she murmured. Her eyes had fallen to the sharp downturn of Emma's mouth and she couldn't drag them away again. 'You're too self-assured.'

'And you're too obsessive.'

'You wear terrible clothes,' Regina said, trailing a finger down the offensive leather in question.

Emma leaned forwards, her breath tickling against the shell of Regina's ear. 'And yet you still stare at me in them when you think I'm not looking.'

Regina raised an eyebrow. 'Like you don't do the same.'

'All the time,' Emma said without hesitation.

'And you're not subtle about it.'

'Nope.'

'So can you blame me for not trusting you?'

'Not at all. I'm utterly incompetent.'

'You said it, dear.'

Emma pulled back from Regina's ear, smirking.

'So you still don't want to kiss me?'

'Absolutely not.'

'So if I tried to kiss you now,' Emma asked quietly, her gaze level, 'you'd stop me?'

There was a beat. And then, 'Absolutely not.'

Emma fell against Regina with such ferocity that the brunette was forced down into the sofa, her head just about landing on a cushion as Emma pressed her body on top of her. The blonde's lips were moving heatedly on her own before she had even closed her eyes.

Messy curls were falling down and tickling against Regina's forehead as Emma eased her mouth open with her tongue, letting it delve inside as furiously as she dared. A slow, drawn-out moan filled the air around them, but neither woman could have said which of them it had come from. Regina was too busy pushing her hands up the sides of Emma's body, reaching the usual armour of red leather and tearing it away from her. It fell to the floor beside them, followed by two black stilettos and a pair of heavy boots, with a thud that could barely be heard over the sound of Emma gasping into Regina's mouth.

Straddling the mayor's waist, Emma began to kiss her way down her exposed, pulsing throat until she reached the dip of cleavage that had been tormenting her for months. She brought her hands up to Regina's breasts, massaging them until they were pushed firmly together, and let the sudden channel between them become the newest bed for the hundred hungry kisses that she was pressing upon her. Regina groaned, her head rolling backwards and her back arching slightly beneath Emma's body. Her hands trailed up taut thighs, stopping only when they reached the slight outwards curve of the blonde's hips. She kept her eyes closed, feeling Emma's tongue beginning to graze against the rounded flesh of her left breast, before her fingers started to crawl further upwards. They found the hem of Emma's shirt and teased it away, her nails scratching at the first dent of her ribcage. She heard a sharp intake of breath from above her and finally reopened her eyes: Emma was hovering above her, her own eyes open and wild and desperately watching her. As soon as she met Regina's gaze she tumbled forwards once more, her lips seeking the brunette's and forcing them open, feeling those same nails digging deeper into the curve of her waist and moaning out loud as they did so.

Burying her face in the sheriff's neck, dragging her teeth across a furiously throbbing pulse point, Regina muttered against her skin, 'Quiet, dear. Do you want Henry to come down and find us?'

She heard a smothered giggle from somewhere above her. And then two hands were back on her chest, carefully placed thumbs grazing against nipples that were already fighting against the fabric of her dress. Regina moaned, biting down harder on Emma's neck until she heard her gasp. She allowed her fingers to slip down her body for a moment, seeking out the bottom of her shirt once more and pulling it sharply upwards. Emma immediately leaned back, away from the woman lying beneath her, meeting Regina's hands at her waist and pulling the fabric over her head. She watched as two dark eyes crawled up her body, from the impossibly tight dark blue jeans to the perfectly toned stomach, up to the black bra that was barely covering a straining, panting chest. It took every ounce of strength that Regina possessed for her to tear her eyes away from that sight, meeting Emma's gaze once more and smiling slightly.

'Why have you stopped kissing me?' she asked in a low voice. Emma immediately fell forwards, her fingers slipping around the mayor's wrists and pinning them by the sides of her head as her lips once more found their way against those that were perfectly pursed beneath her.

Regina could feel Emma's hips beginning to roll against hers, and it was agony. Her dress was slowly riding upwards, exposing her sheer black panties to the rough fabric of Emma's jeans, and every time that Emma unconsciously let her body rock forwards the friction against her burning core was too much to withstand. With every inch that Emma moved, Regina heard herself moaning louder. Even as Emma smothered her with her lips, with her tongue, even with her hands, the sound of her strangled sighing reverberated throughout the room, and eventually Emma forced herself to pull away from her.

'Do _you _want Henry to come down and find us?' she demanded, slipping her hands down Regina's body until they were firmly gripping her about the waist. Regina was breathing heavily, her dark eyes wide and wild, and she could only shake her head in response. Words no longer came to her. When Emma smirked slightly, digging in her nails through the fabric of her dress, she made a sound that almost sounded like a growl and reached up, gripping Emma by the back of her neck and tugging her so fiercely forwards that she couldn't catch her breath before perfect, red-painted lips were moving against her own.

The hem of her dressed moved further upwards as Emma's hips continued to roll, and finally she looked down to find that the Regina's toned thighs were fully exposed to her. She shifted backwards slightly, moving away from Regina's hips so that she was only straddling her legs, and began to drag her nails up the perfect olive skin that was waiting for her. Her fingers left blazing white trails behind them. Regina sucked her breath in further with every inch that they climbed. Emma's usually laser-sharp eyes had turned dark, pinned onto the exposed flesh of the mayor's legs and the sheer black fabric of the panties that waited just above them. After a few moments Regina shifted herself up onto her elbows, biting down on her bottom lip.

Emma finally forced herself to raise her gaze, meeting the eye of the woman who was watching her expectantly.

'Do you…' Emma said, swallowing. Her fingers never left Regina's thighs. 'Do you still want to take this slowly?'

Regina considered the question for a moment. Panic was already hurtling through her like lightening – like their relationship was a timebomb and Emma's fingers and lips and teeth and tongue were the absolute key to setting it off.

_We have to be patient_, she said. Not out loud, but to herself. Because out loud she simply heard herself sigh, her eyes fluttering shut.

'If you dare take your hands off of me,' she murmured, her arms shaking beneath her. 'I'll make you sorry that you were born.'

Emma responded the only way that she knew how to – by sliding back down onto the mayor's body, cupping one hand around the back of her head while the other found its way back over her breast. She could feel a furiously thundering heartbeat beneath her fingers as she kissed her, dragging her tongue across bared teeth, feeling swollen lips smiling before they began to gasp once more.

Tugging Regina upwards into a sitting position, Emma found the zipper at the back of her dress and slid it downwards; the tips of her fingers skimming over the bumps of Regina's spine as they worked their way down to the small of her back. In one quick movement, Regina's dress was pulled over her head. She was left leaning back on her hands, Emma sat atop her thighs with her green eyes glossing over at the sight of the perfect, devastating, heaving breasts beneath a black lacy bra. She reached forwards and unhooked it in a second. Regina felt her arms being snatched out from beneath her as Emma pushed her back onto the couch, her hand running over a stiff nipple and teasing it between a pinching thumb and forefinger. Regina groaned, the air catching in the back of her throat as she felt her head roll backwards once more. When Emma's fingers were replaced with her lips, her hips bucked upwards of their own accord.

Emma ran her tongue over that nub of flesh, moaning from deep within her chest, and felt her whole body beginning to melt against Regina's. Because dragging her tongue over Regina's skin was like tasting caramel: impossibly sweet and just slightly salty, and absolutely impossible to stop. Emma moved her mouth towards the centre of Regina's chest and dug her teeth into the rounded flesh of her breast, tasting it in the same way that she would devour chocolate. She quickly realised that the frustrated groan humming from the brunette's throat was infinitely more addictive.

Her thigh slipped between Regina's legs, the grating fabric of her jeans pressing directly against the brunette's aching core, and smirked when she heard Regina crying out.

'…do you want me to stop?' she asked, her voice low with the challenge, as she sat up once more. Regina just blinked up at her for a moment, letting herself catch her breath as her fingers tapped out a nervous rhythm against Emma's thighs. And then, before the sheriff could register the movement, she was being shoved backwards and off of Regina entirely. Pinning her down into the sofa with her surprisingly strong arms, Regina glared down at her.

'No,' she said simply, reaching beneath Emma's arching back to unhook her bra and tossing it onto the floor beside them. 'Never. Don't you dare.'

As Emma watched her she reached down between them, cupping her hand against the blonde's core. Even through her pants Regina could feel the desperate heat coming from her, and she couldn't help but smirk. After unbuttoning and unzipping the jeans with two flicks of her hand, she replaced the heel of her palm where it had been moments before. Her tongue darted out over her bright, bared teeth as she leaned forwards, pressing her weight against the base of her hand. Emma immediately moaned, her hips arching forwards to meet the pressure.

Regina pulled away again at once, swooping forwards to kiss the frustrated groan straight out of Emma's mouth. She let her own hips roll against the sheriff's, not applying enough force to satisfy the boiling ache between Emma's legs but just enough to add to her already immense discomfort. When Emma bucked forwards, Regina lifted her body just out of reach. She continued to kiss the blonde woman, her fingers tangling through matted curls, tormenting her with her refusal to cooperate until finally she heard what sounded like a whimper coming from Emma's throat.

Her dark eyes snapped open to find Emma trembling beneath her, her breasts heaving upwards as she tried to control herself.

'Regina,' she hissed. She tried to push herself up onto her elbows, but Regina promptly forced her back down again. '_Regina_. I'm going to fucking explode if you don't touch me properly.'

She moaned when she felt hot breath tickling against the shell of her ear. 'Well. We wouldn't want _that_, now would we?'

And yet Regina still neglected to touch the aching spot between her legs. Using the tip of her tongue she teased Emma's earlobe into her mouth, nibbling on it while she continued to pull her hips out of reach of Emma's own bucking body.

'_Regina_,' Emma snapped, sounded so frustrated that she might start crying at any moment. 'I fucking _swear_. I'm going to lose my mind. I can't—'

'Did you not think,' Regina interrupted, her voice a low hum deep in Emma's ear, 'that that might be _exactly _what I had in mind?'

Emma could only blink. And then suddenly a cool hand slipped down the front of her jeans, dragging a hard line against her throbbing core.

She threw her head back and moaned, Regina's fingers grinding against her clit for a split second before they disappeared again. When Regina immediately returned to sucking on her earlobe she nearly choked.

'Regina,' she whispered. She already didn't care how desperate she sounded. 'Regina, please.'

'Please, what?' Regina muttered into her ear before her lips began to work away at the pulsing skin below her jaw. Emma made one last desperate attempt to grind her hips up against Regina's; to seek some tiny, pathetic gratification – but the brunette saw it coming. She pulled her whole body away, pinning Emma's arms and legs down with her own limbs, her black panties infuriatingly far away from the triangle of red fabric that was exposed through Emma's undone pants.

'Regina…' Emma muttered, trying to sound like she was full of warning. It came out as a whimper.

'Please, what?' Regina repeated, lowering her body for one delicious moment as if she was going to roll her hips fully against the woman lying beneath her. She pulled away at the last second, and Emma threw her head backwards. Tears of frustration began to scratch at her closed eyes.

'Please, Regina,' she forced out through gritted teeth. 'Please touch me.'

'Where?'

'Everywhere.'

She felt fingers wiggling against her pinned wrists. 'Like here?'

'Regina, I swear to God, I'm going to fucking scream in a minute.'

'Not just yet, you're not,' Regina replied. 'Tell me where you want me to touch you.'

'You _know _where.'

'I do. But I want to hear you say it.'

'If this is just some exercise in humiliation then you can just forget it. I'm not begging you.'

'Aren't you?' Regina said in a low voice. She released Emma's leg from beneath her own and suddenly ground her knee against the space between her trembling thighs. The sound that came from Emma's mouth almost resembled a sob. 'Because it certainly sounds like you are.'

'_Regina_,' Emma gasped out, wiggling her hips to try and get more contact against the hard surface of her knee. 'I'm serious.'

'So am I, dear.' Regina pressed her knee forwards again, feeling Emma's arms shaking beneath her hands as she tried and failed to pull herself free. 'I will do whatever you want me to. Anything. But first – tell me where you want me to touch you.'

'Regina—'

'Now.'

In the beat of silence that followed Emma forced her eyes open again, looking up at the wicked smile that was tugging at the corners of Regina's mouth. She saw the challenge there. She knew that she was winning: she knew that Emma would give in soon.

Emma gritted her teeth together. 'I want you to fuck me.'

'That's not what I asked.'

'What do—'

'Where do you want me to touch you, Miss Swan?'

Emma inhaled sharply as Regina suddenly dipped her chest downwards, her flawless rear curving upwards into the air as her bare breasts slid against Emma's own.

'There,' Emma moaned. Regina repeated the action, letting their nipples graze together. Emma pulled more fiercely against her grip, trying to wriggle free from beneath her.

'Like this?' Regina asked, leaning forwards until the tip of her nose was touching Emma's. Emma nodded, unable to form words. She could feel the perfect spheres of Regina's breasts rolling against her own, and even though it was nowhere close to what she wanted her to be doing at that moment, it felt perfect. Both of the women were slightly sticky with sweat and their bodies slid effortlessly against one another. Emma looked back up into Regina's dark eyes and she felt like she was swimming in her. She was surrounded by her and her whole body was on fire with it.

'Regina, I need you to fuck me. Please.'

'Tell me where.'

'Regina—'

'Tell me _where_.'

'Jesus Christ,' Emma hissed through her teeth, thrusting her head forwards to capture the mayor's mouth in a biting kiss that was so fierce it almost hurt. 'My pussy, Regina. My clit. I'm soaking wet and I'm close to screaming and I will fucking die if you don't touch me there. So please – _please _– put me out of my misery and—'

She was cut off by Regina returning her possessive kiss, taking hold of Emma's bottom lip between her front teeth and tugging on it. Emma didn't register that her arms had been released until suddenly a hand was snaking down the front of her panties, finding its way along her slit until it reached the aching, throbbing bundle of nerves that was waiting at the top.

'Oh, _Jesus_,' she groaned, feeling Regina's fingers curling around it. The pads of two fingers started to circle, around and around that tiny nub of flesh that was sending electricity through Emma's bones, quickly dissolving her sighs into aching, longing moans. She slipped her arms around Regina's neck, burying her face beneath the curtain of dark hair and biting down on the hot skin that she found waiting for her there. Regina hissed in pleasure, putting more weight onto the palm of her hand, and began to grind it more furiously against Emma's hot, throbbing centre.

'Fuck,' Emma whimpered, bringing her knees up and wrapping her legs around the backs of Regina's thighs. 'Oh, _god_, Regina, _fuck._'

Regina slowed the movement of her fingers down for just a moment, watching as Emma's eyes snapped back open, shining with desperation.

'Don't stop,' she muttered. Regina kissed her once more before she responded.

'Those pants need to come off, dear,' she murmured against her lips, tugging her hand free of the constraining fabric and beginning to tease the jeans away from Emma's hips. Emma suddenly snapped to attention, arching her back so that the rest of the denim could be eased away from her body. The moment that she was lying in nothing but her red panties, she watched the dark flush of colour that rose in Regina's cheeks.

'Much better,' she said quietly. She began to slide her body down along the couch, settling herself between Emma's slightly shaking legs and hooking her forefingers through the thin fabric waiting before her. As Emma felt it beginning to edge downwards, she felt herself reach out a hand to clutch at Regina's.

'You're sure about this?' she asked, propping herself up onto her elbows. Regina glanced up and took in her heaving chest, her swollen mouth, her flushed skin. She raised one eyebrow as high as it would go.

'Stop talking,' was all that she said. And then the red fabric had disappeared, and the pressure on Emma's clit rushed back to her.

The moment that Regina's tongue grazed against her, her body collapsed backwards against the arm of the sofa. Hands grasped hold of either one of her thighs and pushed them upwards, giving Regina a clearer view of the unfamiliar but utterly agonising prize before her. She languidly drew her tongue up Emma's slit a second time, letting the very tip of her tongue linger slightly as it reached the top. She felt Emma's toes curl against her elbows. A low moan erupted from somewhere ahead of her and she smirked into the warmth of Emma's skin.

As she began to circle her tongue around Emma's clit, Regina couldn't help but think about just how much she wasn't thinking. Really, she had no clue what she was doing – no one had ever touched her like this before, and so part of her was terrified that she was making all the wrong decisions. But then a hand found its way up into her hair, a mess of fingers and nails curling into a fist that tugged her closer, and she knew that, somehow, she was doing this right. Her heart skipped at the thought, and she pressed her tongue more firmly against the point of Emma's body that made her hips grind forwards, her eyes roll backwards, and her breath escape from her lips in one long, drawn-out sigh of ecstasy.

Regina reached up then, one of her fingers seeking out Emma's opening and slowly pushing its way inside. Emma immediately groaned, biting down on her bottom lip. Regina felt the grip on her hair tighten and she pushed further forwards, beginning to purse her lips around Emma's clit and suck gently enough on it that it wouldn't startle her if she didn't like it. The noise that then came from Emma's mouth, however, closely verged on being a cry – her knees suddenly clamped down against the sides of Regina's head, and the boiling feeling that was rolling within her stomach only deepened. Her breath kept catching in her furiously pounding chest and, when a second finger found its way inside of her, she knew that she wasn't far from the edge. She bucked her hips forwards once more, wrenching Regina's mouth closer to her and feeling the brunette's tongue beginning to work more furiously as the muscles surrounding it constricted and quivered beneath her touch.

'Oh fuck,' she moaned, pressing her free hand against her closed eyes, the heat that was radiating from her skin nearly burning her fingers. '_Fuck_. Regina… don't stop. Please don't stop.'

Regina responded by digging the nails of her left hand into the skin of Emma's hip, sucking on her clit and gently grazing her teeth over it until the blonde's moans escalated into desperate, bursting cries. When her body began to tremble, Regina held her as firmly as she could. Her fingers continued to slide inside of her, dragging again and again against her fiercely clenching muscles, pulling Emma blindly to the edge of a cliff that was so high up into the clouds that the thin air nearly suffocated her. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she couldn't breathe. Her heart pounded against the inside of her chest, blood rushing around her body like a river, and when she felt her body finally begin to seize under the weight of the orgasm that was shaking her she knew that she was drowning in it. She was drowning in Regina.

Regina watched as her upper body arched into the air, kissing her clit again and again as Emma was rocketed over the edge of that cliff. Her head was thrown backwards, the cry tumbling from parted lips that she couldn't seem to suck any air inside of. As her whole body jerked upwards, Regina could feel a hot, sticky wetness flooding across her lips and chin. She slid her tongue back down Emma's centre, earning her another surprised gasp, before dragging some of those surprisingly sweet juices up to coat her still-throbbing clit.

And Emma screamed. Regina almost winced, wondering if Henry would have heard, but then the utter deliciousness of the sound washed over her and she realised that, right then, she simply did not care. Twisting her fingers inside of Emma's body, she lapped the wetness over her clit again and again until a second blinding orgasm shook through Emma's trembling, aching muscles. Her knees were pressed so furiously against the sides of Regina's head that she began to see stars, but she still didn't care. She was slowly letting Emma come down from her high, feeling her body quiver every time that she languidly ran her tongue over the electric bundle of nerves beneath her nose, and eventually the fierceness of the fingers that were tangled amongst her hair began to lessen. When Emma opened her eyes, glossy with tears and exhaustion, she wasn't surprised to find Regina's dark gaze looking back at her.

Regina pulled away from her, slowly sliding her dripping fingers out from her hot core and letting her tongue remove every last drop of those juices from them. Emma watched with wide, unblinking eyes. She didn't care that she was slumped across the couch, her legs still spread and her cheeks furiously red. She watched Regina tasting her like she was a gourmet ice cream, and she moaned once more. The throbbing in her clit may have just about subsided, but the dangerous sparking in her fingers and toes hadn't even begun to lessen.

Regina blinked as Emma slowly slipped off of the couch and onto the carpet, sitting herself on her knees at Regina's hip. She reached up, taking Regina's face in her clammy hands and pulling it downwards until her tongue was sliding between lips that tasted unmistakably of herself. Regina sighed into her mouth, sucking gently on the tongue that was swirling against her own, and realised with a squeezing feeling deep within her stomach that a hand was snaking its way beneath the fabric of her black panties.

'Emma—' she muttered, closing her eyes.

Emma ignored her. 'Your turn.'

'You don't have to—'

'Your turn, Regina,' Emma repeated, grabbing hold of the backs of Regina's thighs and tugging them sharply forwards. Regina found herself slumped against the back of the sofa, her legs suddenly wrapped around Emma's waist.

Before she could say another word, Emma caught her bottom lip between her own teeth and began to nibble on it. A moan erupted from somewhere within Regina's throat. As one of Emma's hands slipped up her trembling body, resting for a moment on her left breast before it continued up towards the pulsing hollow of her throat, Regina felt the other one returning to its position at the front of her panties. The heel of Emma's palm started grinding against the fabric, rolling against her clit so slowly that she could feel her muscles started to ache with anticipation. Regina reached out, tangling her fingers amongst knotted blonde curls, and tugged Emma more fiercely towards her. She kissed her so furiously that Emma found herself yet again lost for words, gasping for air; drowning in the sweet smell and the salty taste that was utterly and entirely Regina.

Emma pulled her body backwards for just a moment, tugging Regina's panties away with her. As they slipped from between her steady fingers and onto the floor at her knees, she couldn't help but notice just how damp they already were.

Those fingers found their way up the centre of Regina's core, causing a gasp to slip from Regina's lips that sucked the air clean out of Emma's chest. She moved her mouth over to Regina's ear, kissing the pulse point that was thundering away just beneath it, and letting two of her fingers slowly slide between the mayor's legs. Regina automatically arched against them, curving her spine forwards until she was filled with the sensation of Emma's prying digits. They curved momentarily upwards, and she whimpered. Then suddenly the pad of Emma's thumb was rubbing a slow, tormenting circle against her throbbing clit, and she found herself clinging onto her back with her nails digging into tensed, hot skin for support.

'Oh god,' she groaned into her ear, grinding her hips forwards against Emma's fingers once more. 'Oh _god oh god oh god.'_

'Is that good?' Emma murmured, placing her free hand on the small of Regina's back and tugging her closer.

'Harder,' Regina bit out, unable to say anything more. A heat was rising through her whole body and the pressure of it was making every muscle, every nerve in her body, begin to shiver.

'Like that?' Emma purred, jarring her thumb against Regina's clit so firmly that a new wave of wetness spread over her moving fingers.

'Fuck,' Regina groaned, burying her face in the curve of Emma's shoulder. 'Emma. Jesus. _Fuck_.'

Emma began to roll her hips forwards to match the motion of her fingers, burying them in Regina's pussy as deep as they would go. Regina tightened the grip of her legs around Emma's waist, her nails clawing paths down Emma's back and shoulders that would undoubtedly leave angry red welts behind them. Neither of them cared. Emma returned the favour, grazing the skin at the small of Regina's back with her own nails and feeling the small beads of sweat that were trailing down Regina's spine slicking beneath them.

For a split second, Emma pulled her hand away from Regina's throbbing core, almost relishing the shudder of disappointment that reverberated through her body. She pulled back from the trembling woman, forcing a kiss onto her lips just before she looked down at the space between them. Her sticky hand snaked down between her own legs, grazing over her still pulsing clit until it was coated in her own wetness. Then those fingers returned to their new favourite position between Regina's legs, grinding the tips of two fingers against a clit that was sparking and screaming and begging for more and more and more.

When Emma slid down her body until her chin was resting on the edge of the couch, Regina didn't stop her. She allowed her legs to be hooked over the blonde's shoulders and sucked in an agonised breath as that pink, pointed tongue crawled out and found its way to where her fingers had been only seconds before. Regina moaned, and let her body slump backwards against the sofa. It only took a moment before two fingers were back inside her, furiously sliding backwards and forwards as a set of lips and a devastating tongue wreaked their havoc on her throbbing, pleading clit.

She could hear herself crying out. Tears were scratching at her eyes and so she clamped them shut, letting her head roll back against the sofa cushions. Her fingers gripped hold of whatever they could find – the rough couch fabric; the skin of Emma's shoulder; the matted blonde mane of her hair. She dragged her nails over texture after texture, feeling her hips rolling further and further forwards with only one word slipping from between lips that at any moment were about to scream until the whole of Storybrooke woke up.

'Emma,' she panted, her breasts heaving upwards as she felt an unfamiliar wave creeping towards her. 'Emma. _Emma_.'

When it hit her, her whole body shook like charges were being driven through her muscles. She tensed her thighs against the sides of Emma's face, pulling her closer while simultaneously trying to force her away, feeling the agonising and electrocuting sensation of her tongue continuing to lap away at her clit. When she thought that her orgasm was nearly over, Emma suddenly twisted her fingers and dragged them downwards, sending a whole new wave of tremors crashing over the top of her heard. Gasping for air, Regina's whole body arched forwards as a loud, desperate, uncaring scream was wrenched from her lips. It echoed through the room for minutes after she fell still again; Emma's exhausted but smirking face resting quietly on the flat plain of her stomach.

'I can't…' she heard herself muttering, reaching down to run a hand over the side of Emma's face. 'You lied to me.'

Emma blinked, frowning. 'When?'

'When you said that you never date,' Regina muttered, finally forcing herself to open her eyes. The room was an odd shade of blue around her; the way that the world looked when you closed your eyes against the glaring sunlight.

'That wasn't a lie, Regina.' Emma shifted her body up onto the couch beside her, hooking one of her legs over her lap and allowing her head to rest on Regina's shoulder. Two hands immediately reached up: one looped over her outstretched arm, while the other found its way around her waist and quickly pulled her closer.

'You were,' Regina said, tilting Emma's chin upwards and pressing a kiss onto her pouting lips. 'You've done that before.'

Emma smirked then, her green eyes flashing with what might have been pride. 'It was good then, was it?'

'Like you really need an answer to that,' Regina rolled her eyes. 'Are you going to tell me who the woman was?'

'There's no woman, Regina.'

'Emma, come on—'

'I wanted this to be right,' Emma interrupted, turning away so that she could rest her head back against Regina's clammy shoulder. 'It had to be… everything. So I… you know. Did some research.'

Regina frowned. 'Research?'

'Yes, Regina,' Emma said in a low voice. Regina quickly realised that it was throbbing with embarrassment, and finally understood what exactly she was referring to.

'_Oh_,' she said. She extended her fingers against Emma's waist and began to trail a delicate line against the curve of her body. 'You… you really…?'

'Yes,' Emma replied, still not looking up at the woman who was holding her. 'I did. And I'm not going to pretend that I didn't enjoy it, because, honestly – some of the stuff out there on the internet is freakishly hot. I might show you some day.'

Regina almost choked. 'I will _not_—'

'But at least it paid off,' Emma continued, closing her eyes. Her lips were vaguely smiling. 'I mean – I think.'

Regina squeezed her more tightly against her body, pressing a kiss into her mess of blonde curls.

'You might say that.'

Emma pulled away from her, looking up into her hooded gaze with one raised eyebrow. 'I _might _say that?'

Regina smirked. 'Your head's big enough already, Miss Swan. I don't want to contribute to any sort of hospitalisation should its size increase any further.'

Emma watched her for a moment, a cautious smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. And then she threw herself forward, burying those lips against Regina's and sucking the sarcasm clean out of her mouth.

'You're unbearable,' she muttered against her lips after a moment, her hands reaching up to push Regina's damp hair away from her face.

'That I am,' Regina replied, smiling. It was a genuine smile: there was no challenge there. No irony. 'And yet you can't resist me anyway.'

'And _I'm _self-assured?' Emma sniggered, kissing her once more. 'Luckily for you, I've always found cockiness kind of attractive. Otherwise you'd be firmly out on your ass by now, Mayor Mills.'

Regina laughed, trailing one finger down the side of Emma's flushed face.

'You'd throw _me_ out?' she asked in a low voice, her gaze slipping down to the various bruises that were blossoming along Emma's pulsing throat. 'Now that's something that I would certainly like to see.'

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_**A/N: **All aboard the SMUT TRAIN. I hope you enjoyed! Come and say hi on tumblr, let's make friends - __I'm **starsthatburn **over there too :)_


	17. Chapter 17

_**A/N: **I am SO SORRY for the enormously long wait for this chapter... I have no real excuse other than the fact that a) I've been at work every day for the last week and a half, and b) for some reason this chapter threw some mad writer's block at me. But here it finally is - I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen**

Emma couldn't help but smile wryly when she looked up to find Regina leaning against the doorway to her office. In either hand she was carrying a takeout cup from Granny's. When Emma only raised her eyebrows at her, she shook one of them enticingly.

'I had no idea that I had you so well trained,' Emma said. Regina's casual smile immediately turned into a glare.

'Hardly,' she said, sauntering into the room with her usual cool authority and placing one of the coffees in front of Emma. She didn't let go of it, however – her fingers remained firmly wrapped around it as she leant across the desk, her dark eyes boring into a pair of unblinking green ones.

'You're bringing me coffee, Regina,' Emma said, smirking. 'You've officially been domesticated.'

'Please stop talking, Miss Swan,' Regina replied, finally releasing the cup and sitting herself down in her usual chair on the other side of the desk. 'Unless you're going to say thank you.'

Emma responded by picking up the cup, prising the lid off of it and suspiciously eyeing its contents. 'You didn't spit in this, did you?'

'Emma.'

'I'm _kidding_,' Emma said, taking a sip. 'Thank you, Regina.'

'You're not welcome. At all.'

'You definitely did spit in this.'

'I'm certainly beginning to wish that I did.'

Emma laughed, putting the cup back on the desk and leaning backwards in her chair. 'What are you doing here, anyway? Is everything okay?'

'Everything's fine,' Regina replied, crossing her legs over. She noted with a throb of pride that Emma's unblinking eyes automatically followed their movement. 'I simply came to ask you if you wanted to come to my house for dinner tonight.'

'I've been to your house for dinner three times in the last two weeks,' Emma replied, finally looking back up again. 'Mary Margaret may be kind of wrapped up in the whole David thing, but even she might get suspicious if I start moving in with the mayor.'

Regina took a calm sip of her coffee. 'Just tell her that it's because you're spending time with Henry.'

'That's what I have been telling her,' Emma said, raising her eyes to the ceiling. 'But she's not an idiot, Regina.'

'Are you quite sure about that?'

'Regina.'

'She has no reason to be suspicious – we're meant to hate each other, if you recall. No one in their right mind would begin to imagine that just because we're finally being civil to one another it means that we're actually making out like teenagers in my office. And Miss Blanchard is certainly _not _in her right mind.'

'_Regina_.'

'Don't look at me like that. You know that I'm right.'

Emma continued to glare at her for a few moments, unable to ignore the automatic defensiveness that arose whenever Regina insulted her roommate. But then she sighed. 'I'm just… I'm being careful.'

'Because you think that it must be obvious to anyone who looks at us,' Regina said, smiling slightly. 'I thought that too, for a short while. But then I remembered who we are: we're the scary, angry mayor who's incapable of love and the scary, angry sheriff who simply doesn't want to be. No one would see us together. Not even your roommate.'

'I know,' Emma muttered, tracing her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. 'We've just got a good thing going on. It would really suck if it got ruined by… someone else finding out.'

'They won't,' Regina said simply. 'No one even cares about us, except for us. No one notices a thing.'

Emma almost nodded. And then, as it often did, the image of August's blue eyes flashing with something that worryingly resembled knowing shot through her mind: the way that his eyes always seemed to watch her nowadays. Because he _did _care. And he did notice.

Emma winced automatically.

She got up from her chair and walked over to the nearest filing cabinet just to have something to do with her body that didn't involve it anxiously vibrating beneath the desk.

'So. Dinner?' Regina asked, seemingly oblivious to the nerves that were jumping beneath Emma's skin. She watched as she opened the cabinet, pulled out a file and shoved it closed again. When Emma returned to the desk she walked straight past her chair, choosing instead to pace back and forth with her eyes fixed on the papers in her hands.

'Hm?' she eventually responded. Regina frowned. She'd heard her: she knew that she'd heard her.

'Emma,' she said warningly, leaning forwards in her seat. 'What are you doing?'

'Working,' she responded, not looking up. As she breezed past her Regina caught that now familiar scent of vanilla and coffee. She gritted her teeth, refusing to let herself get distracted by it.

Her hand shot out and grabbed at Emma's wrist the moment that she was in reach, not looking down as the papers tumbled to the ground.

'Why don't you want to come to dinner?'

'I do,' Emma replied, glancing down at the file that was now spread across the floor between them. When she tried to bend down to pick it up, Regina's arm braced and stopped her from moving.

'Then why are you looking so worried?'

'I'm not worried,' Emma said, glancing up. 'This is my face. I have an anxious face.'

'You have a face that should never be involved in a game of poker,' Regina replied. She let go of Emma's wrist, waiting for her to start pacing again. She watched as she chose instead to sigh, leaning back against the edge of the desk with her fingers curling whitely around the wood. 'Look. If you _really _don't want to come, for whatever reason, then you can just—'

'I think that somebody does know.'

Regina blinked. Then she frowned.

'…who?'

'August,' Emma mumbled. 'He… he never says anything. But he just gives me this look. This look that says that knows me better than I think he does.'

A low growl came from Regina's throat before she could stop it. She looked like a guard dog with her fur stood on edge.

'I _told _you that I didn't trust that man.'

'Regina—'

'I've never liked him. In fact, I really think that I may hate him.'

Emma couldn't help but laugh. 'Oh, Jesus. Regina, you—'

'And _not _because I am jealous,' Regina snapped, cutting her off before the ludicrous words could even escape from her infuriatingly smug lips. 'Because he's untrustworthy and interfering and now he has information to use against me. Against _us_.'

Emma sighed. 'This is why I didn't want to say anything.'

'Why?'

'Because you're freaking out.'

'So are you!'

'I'm not – because he's not going to do anything. You don't have to trust him, Regina, but I do. I'm just a bit concerned, that's all. Because… look, he may have worked it out. Or he may think that he's worked it out. Which, like it or not, means that _anyone _could do the same thing if they just paid enough attention. So maybe we should aim for a bit of… subtlety.'

Regina let out a sharp bark of laughter. 'Now there's a word that I would never associate with you.'

Emma glowered at her, scooting her body backwards on the desk until her legs were dangling away from the floor. She looked like a pouting child, and Regina had to force herself not to laugh once more.

'Okay,' she conceded after a moment. 'The dinners can… slow down.'

'I don't want them to,' Emma quickly interjected. 'I love spending time with you, and with Henry. But I just think it's… it's probably best.'

Regina nodded, biting down on her bottom lip. There was a beat. When she spoke again her voice was low and worried, clattering through the quiet room. 'So… when am I going to get to see you?'

Emma smiled. 'You'll get to see me plenty. I promise.'

She watched as Regina moved slowly to her feet. She placed herself between Emma's knees and reached out, looping a single blonde curl around her finger.

'I hope so,' she said quietly, not meeting Emma's gaze. She was so focused on the movement of that yellow strand of hair that her eyes almost looked black.

'Don't look so worried,' Emma said, her fingers trailing upwards until they found the curve of Regina's waist. 'I can always try and speak to him. Put the thought out of his mind.'

Regina released a snort of derision. 'You'll do no such thing. You cannot lie, Miss Swan. He'll know that you're trying to hide something and he'll know it immediately.'

Emma's bottom lip jutted firmly outwards into another pout. 'I can so lie.'

'Oh, of course,' Regina said, tugging gently on the curl that was still wound around her finger. 'Because that time that you broke into my office and then tried to convince me that it was some kids with a rock was _so _successful.'

'You totally bought that.'

'A monkey wouldn't have bought that, Emma. It was insulting.'

Emma could feel Regina nudging closer to her, now standing firmly between her outspread thighs. She glanced down, and then she sighed.

'Then... what do you want me to do?'

Regina blinked. Emma sounded almost defeated, somehow: like the mere knowledge that Regina was upset with this situation was absolutely devastating to her, and she needed to try and fix it. Like she had no other choice.

'You don't have to do anything,' Regina said slowly, tilting Emma's chin upwards until she was forced to meet her gaze. She sighed once more, her green eyes misting over.

'Yes I do. This is my fault.'

'How exactly is it your fault?'

'He saw it.'

Regina frowned. 'He saw… what?'

'The way that I look at you,' Emma said flatly. 'The way you force me to light up.'

'I…' Regina could feel something sharp scratching at the backs of her eyes and she blinked fiercely, trying to force it away again. 'I do what?'

'You heard me,' Emma said, releasing Regina's waist with a groan. 'And he noticed. So this is my fault, and I should be the one to fix it.'

But Regina was distracted by just how suddenly the feeling of Emma's hands leaving her body had made her want to cry. Before she knew it she was leaning forwards and pressing her lips fiercely against Emma's, her fingers slipping through the blonde curls that were now their home and pulling her as close against her chest as her trembling arms would allow her to.

Emma blinked, startled, and then felt the heat that was coming off of Regina's body; the desperation that was leaking from her skin. She pushed her away, peering up into the dark eyes that were still frowning at her.

'Regina? What—?'

'Do you trust him?' Regina demanded, her gaze unfaltering. Emma swallowed.

'I told you, you don't have to be—'

'That's not what I was asking, Emma,' Regina interrupted, moving her face closer until their lips were nearly touching; separated by only a wisp of air. 'Do you _trust _him? Do you trust him to not say anything?'

Emma managed to nod beneath Regina's anxious gaze. 'Yeah. I do.'

She felt the sharp exhalation of air that Regina released against her skin. 'You're sure?'

'Yes.'

Regina nodded. 'Okay. Okay then. Then I suppose… I suppose I trust him too.'

Emma paused for a moment before she carefully asked, '…what?'

'If you're sure that he's not going to try and use whatever information he may have against us,' Regina said, the words tasting bitter on her tongue, 'then I'm going to trust you. And I won't mention it again.'

But Emma was shaking her head. 'You're… letting it go? You're _seriously _going to do that for me?'

'I trust you,' Regina repeated with a shrug of her shoulders. Her heart was beating furiously against the inside of her chest and she was sure that Emma must have been able to feel it, but she forced herself not to pull away. 'So, yes. I'm going to hope for the best and let this thing go.'

'For me.'

Regina swallowed. 'Yes. For you.'

Emma's eyes were darting across Regina's face, trying to draw one last drop of sense out of what she had just said to her. Regina didn't trust _anyone_ – how the hell was it possible that she was suddenly so willing to believe in her?

And then she saw it: the smile that was on Regina's face, without her ever moving her lips. As she looked down at Emma, her dark eyes worried and her expression utterly neutral, there was a hint of a smile playing about it even so. Emma recognised it for exactly what it was – it was the same light that August had noticed in her.

Her hands slipped back around Regina's waist, pulling her towards her once more and closing the minute gap between their bodies. Regina's lips quirked nervously upwards.

'I never thought that I would be the person to make you look like that again,' Emma said, raising a hand and trailing her thumb down Regina's jaw.

Regina shivered momentarily before she responded. 'Look like what?'

Emma never blinked. 'Happy.'

She watched as Regina's face broke into a smile. A real, genuine, fiercely luminous smile that filled the sheriff's station with the same light that still plagued Emma's nightmares. It was a smile that was all teeth and lines and made her dark eyes shine with what could only have been tears.

'You're right,' she said after a moment, swallowing. She tilted her head forwards until their foreheads were touching. 'It's certainly unexpected.'

Because, as she was slowly realising – she _was _happy. Not all of the time, and not without a heavy, vibrating anxiousness still permanently lurking within her bones. But she was still happier than she had been for years – at least twenty eight of them.

The day that her curse had wrapped its fingers around the Enchanted Forest was the day that her life was meant to have gotten better: it was supposed to have been her happy ending. Instead, twenty eight years of stagnant loneliness had begun to follow her around; surrounding her with glass walls that she had inadvertently built herself and choking her on the stale air that filled the space between them. She had spent the majority of her life that way: alone, and unhappy, and waiting for something to change.

She felt herself slowly beginning to smile again as she moved her face forward those last few inches. Emma's hands returned to her waist and tugged her closer, her own mouth bridging the remaining distance and pressing itself firmly against Regina's. As their lips parted and Regina heard herself sighing into Emma's mouth, the thought crept up on her and whispered intoxicatingly into her ear.

_Maybe this _is _your happy ending_.

Her hands found their way down to Emma's jeans and she raked her nails against the tops of her thighs, letting her fingers crawl downwards until they were hooked behind Emma's bent knees. She lifted them slightly, nudging them upwards until Emma wrapped her legs around Regina's waist. And then Regina fell forwards, taking Emma with her: she pushed her down into the desk, her hands on either side of those messy blonde curls, and she kissed her until her lips begun to sting.

_But she's the saviour_, that voice in her head continued whispering. _You know that she's going to break your curse. You know it. She's giving you your happy ending – and then she's going to take it away again._

Regina tried to ignore it, letting her tongue delve deeper into Emma's mouth until she heard her beginning to moan. She could feel her own hips starting to rock forwards to meet the rough fabric of Emma's jeans, and suddenly those legs were gripping on more tightly around her hips. Emma's hands made their way up into Regina's dark hair and bunched into fists, holding her so fiercely that she couldn't have pulled away even if she had wanted to.

'Someone could walk in,' Emma panted against her cheek after a moment, glancing over towards the glass walls and the open door.

Regina tilted her head forwards, capturing Emma's bottom lip between her teeth and biting down.

'I don't care,' she replied. Because she didn't. The voice in her head was screaming at her what a fool she was being – how badly her heart was going to get broken. But she simply did not care. She kissed Emma harder and she felt her pulse immediately quicken when Emma moaned in response.

She knew that the likelihood was that her heart was going to get broken. She didn't love Emma – not yet. But she was certain that she could. And loving people never worked out well for her. Loving people tore her heart into pieces and painted it black.

Emma could leave her. Emma could kill her. Or – possibly worst of all – Emma's kiss could be the very thing to break her curse, which would probably destroy them both. Regina knew that she could love her. And she knew that she could so easily rip her own curse to shreds simply by letting herself do so.

And yet she was still kissing her, pushing her down into the desk. Her right hand had found its way between their bodies and was slipping down the front of Emma's pants.

When its movement stopped just short of the fabric of Emma's underwear, a moan came from the throat was currently being plagued by Regina's front teeth.

'Regina,' she groaned, her back arching upwards. 'You're killing me.'

Regina continued to nibble at Emma's pulse point, not replying. One finger began to nudge the fabric of Emma's panties downwards but then stopped almost immediately afterwards. Emma whimpered once more, her head thudding backwards against the desk.

And that's when the vicious little voice inside Regina's head spoke up once more. It sounded like her – it had the same venom in it that she used to use in another land, in a long, flowing dress. It hissed inside her ear like an insect burrowing beneath her skin.

_TRUE love breaks any curse, dear_. _You don't have to worry about that._

Her breath hitched in her throat.

_Because how can you possibly expect to find true love when you aren't even telling her the truth?_

Emma's eyes snapped open when she realised that Regina wasn't kissing her anymore: she was pressed down against her body, her face buried against her neck. Her shoulders were heaving up and down as she tried to catch her breath. Other than that, however, she was still.

'Regina?' Emma asked, trying to push herself up onto her elbows. She dragged one hand away from where it had been trying to hoist the bottom of Regina's dress up and started pushing the tendrils of dark hair away from her face. 'You okay?'

Regina nodded, her eyes closed so that she wouldn't be forced to meet Emma's worried gaze. 'Fine, dear.'

She felt a hand under her chin, trying to ease it upwards. With a sigh, Regina pushed herself off of Emma's body and forced herself to stand up once more.

Emma blinked up at her. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' Regina replied, trying to smile.

_How can you even _begin _to convince yourself that you could find TRUE love with someone who you have never, and will never, be truthful with?_

She should be happy about this – she knew that. Emma's kisses would forever be biting and desperate and they could very well undo her, but they would never undo her curse. _True_ love could. For as long as Regina kept her secret… what they had would be nothing more than just that: desperate, biting, empty kisses.

Her curse was safe. And she should have been happy about that.

'Regina?' Emma asked, shifting forwards to the very edge of the desk. Regina took half a step backwards, running a hand through her tangled hair. 'What did I do?'

But Regina just shook her head. She was trying to smile – Emma could see her physically forcing the corners of her mouth upwards, and it was the saddest sight that she had ever seen. Regina – her Regina, who was strong and terrifying and her own personal hurricane – suddenly looked tiny. She looked pathetic.

Emma couldn't bear it. She sprung off of the desk and wound her arms back around Regina's neck, silently pleading with her to look at her. When she did, those dark eyes had turned from chocolate to treacle, and they were glistening with something that she couldn't read. It almost looked like… shame. But in a flash it was gone again.

'Regina,' Emma muttered, leaning forwards and sliding her lips against Regina's once more because she simply didn't know what else she could do. She felt a pair of hands returning to her waist.

Regina felt that mouth on hers, that body pressed against her own, and for a moment she felt better in the way that only Emma could manage to make her. But then her bones fell heavy with sadness once more.

_She doesn't even know who she's kissing_.

Her curse was safe, and she should have felt happy about that. But in keeping it that way, she had cursed Emma too. Cursed her to be trapped in the same timeless, loveless world that had kept her prisoner for twenty eight years.

Her curse was safe.

But Emma wasn't.

* * *

_**A/N: **So in reviews for past chapters I've had a lot of people worrying that I was about to throw an 'Of Love And Loathing' moment at you all by making Emma's kiss suddenly break the curse... I hope this cleared some of that up for you! Thanks for reading, come and say hi on tumblr if you fancy it :D **starsthatburn** x_


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N: **Because this is another sort of filler chapter I was planning on being nice and posting this really soon after I posted chapter 17. Then life got in the way, as it always goes, and so that kind of failed. So I'm sorry (yet again) for the wait and I'm sorry for the lack of actual honest to hellfire swan queening in this update. But I hope you enjoy it anyway! More good stuff is coming up soon :)_

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen**

The sheriff station was filled with that same unnatural light. Emma's hand shot up towards her eyes, shielding them from the silvery glare, as she stood in the middle of the empty room. The groan came from the cell just as she turned her head towards it. She could feel her feet leading her across the station without her ever telling them to move.

She knew that the door would close behind her: she could hear the metal slowly scraping against the floor long before it clanged shut. Even so, the moment that it closed and she was trapped inside that tiny cell with the hunched-over form of the man whom she knew was cradling a gun, she felt her heart stop. The clock on the wall stopped ticking. Cold terror ran like liquid down her spine as she watched Moe starting to climb to his feet.

Her legs finally did what she told them to and she spun back around, throwing herself at the bars. They seemed heavier than they normally did, and the metal was so cold that it hurt her hands to touch it. The door was locked, as it always was, but she still wrenched at those bars until her shoulders were aching. She could hear shuffling from behind her. She opened her mouth to scream just as that same, dark figure appeared in the doorway on the other side of the room.

The blurred outline looked different, somehow. It was more… solid. As Emma pushed her forehead against those bars, hot tears starting to dribble down her cheeks, she forced herself to focus on the person who was stood watching her. As the shape became more apparent, her stomach twisted into a knot.

Moe grabbed her in that moment. The gun was already pressed against the back of her skull as he tugged her backwards from the bars, holding the length of her wriggling body up against his own. As the metal object shifted position, pointing upwards beneath her chin instead, Moe wrapped his left arm around Emma's neck. She could feel his heart pounding against the space between her shoulder blades; his sticky breath on the shell of her ear. She reached up, trying to loosen the grip of his hammy arm as it started to tighten around her throat. That same old terror, now familiar from following her through nightmare after nightmare every single night for the last three months, was harsh and cold and dragged its nails down every single trembling bone in her body. It never lessened. It was like an old wound that never quite managed to heal before it was torn back open.

The figure on the other side of the bars was still moving towards her, closer than it normally dared to step, and she never took her eyes off of it: she told herself that tonight she would be saved. Tonight the gun would drop to the floor and she would stumble free, out from behind the bars and back into that glaring, metallic light.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, waiting for the frantic pounding in her chest to slow down. When she looked up again, the figure was close enough to have a face.

It was Regina. Of course it was Regina.

She was stood on the other side of the bars, close enough to touch if Emma was brave enough to reach out. Her face was cold, however. She watched Emma's struggling with the sharp, dark eyes of someone who couldn't even bring herself to feel pity for the woman quietly crying before her. She raised one perfect eyebrow, folding her hands in front of her. When Emma whispered her name, her lip curled in disgust.

'Regina,' she pleaded as Moe's arm began to crush the air out of her windpipe. 'Please.'

But Regina just scowled, taking one step closer to the cell. Reaching up a hand, she wrapped her unshaking fingers around one of the bars and leaned her face forwards. Emma choked out a sob, shaking her head.

'Please,' she heard herself beg even as Moe began to drag her backwards. 'Regina, please. Don't let him do this.'

Regina didn't reply. She just watched.

The echo of the gunshot screamed through the cell.

Suddenly Emma was sat upright in bed with her thin shirt sticking to her body. Her bedroom was quiet. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the streaks of yellow that were trailing through the thin clouds above Storybrooke's harbour told her that it wasn't far off. She reached up and pushed her damp hair away from her burning face.

Her hands were shaking. They usually were whenever she woke up from a nightmare, but tonight she looked down at them with squinted eyes and realised that she could actually see the vibrations of her fingers in the darkness of her bedroom. She took a breath, closed her eyes and counted to ten, telling herself that the thundering rhythm of her heart would have slowed down by then. By the time that she had reached ninety it was still beating against her ribcage.

…what the _hell _had Regina been doing there?

Emma slipped her bare legs out from underneath the tangled sheets and let her feet rest on the floor. Sitting on the very edge of the bed, she stared down at the ground with the sound of her racing pulse filling her ears. The image of Regina's face, cold and cruel and uncaring, still hung before her eyes. She shuddered. Regina hadn't looked at her like that in so long – the memory of it, of just how much she could actually hate her, made her chest hurt.

She needed to distract herself.

Emma slipped her body from the mattress and onto the cool floor before she reached beneath the bed. The box was the only object under there.

Her blanket had never really fitted inside of it, and so when the crate was pulled out from underneath the mattress it immediately got caught on the wooden slats of the bed and ended up trailing along the floor. Her automatic reflex was to pick it up and drape it across her lap before she drew the box itself closer to her.

It was still dark in the room, but she didn't turn on the light. There were only two situations in which she looked through this box: one, when it was dim enough that she couldn't see its contents properly. And two, when she was so drunk that she couldn't see anything at all.

The photos were on top, still stacked neatly even though the blanket had nearly dragged them free when it was had fallen out. She tucked it more tightly around her legs before she picked up the pile of curling, scratched papers. They fluttered in her trembling fingers, and yet she forced herself to look down at them. They were her, and they were not her. The wetness on her cheeks began to dry as she carefully examined each and every one.

After half an hour of simply staring, Emma found herself leaning forwards and placing the stack carefully on the floor. Then, for the first time in her entire life, she spread them out and began to actually look at herself: at her hair, at her clothes, at how many teeth she had. At which picture came first, and which one came last.

It took her longer than it should have done to put them in the right order. She found it strangely impossible to gauge her own age – possibly because her appearance never really changed. She was always scrawny, always angry, and always surrounded by a group of other kids who looked equally unimpressed and equally alone. Everyone had always been bigger than her. It was only when she had turned fourteen and learned to fight back that the other kids had finally started leaving her alone.

She sighed, leaning back against the frame of the bed. The order she had put them in looked wrong: the bare early sunlight was beginning to creep in from behind the curtains and, underneath its slightly grey glare, not one of the photographs sat comfortably beside the next. Emma frowned, tugging the blanket closer to her. Something was wrong with it all… she had always managed to keep a photograph from every home, from every foster family, or at least from every year of her life. She scanned the line-up once more, counting the endless list of men and women and children that had made her more and more fucked up with every single threshold that she had dragged her tiny beige suitcase over, and still something wasn't right. Something was missing. There was a photograpj gone – she was sure of it.

But which one, she couldn't remember.

Narrowing her eyes and examining each picture one by one, she found herself recalling the night when Regina had put her to bed. Mary Margaret had caught her looking at the photos then – she was the only other person who had seen them. The only other person in the world.

Emma closed her eyes, resting her aching head in her hands. She wasn't angry – not even slightly. She wasn't even surprised. She was tired and shaking, and she was still haunted by the Regina in her dream who had glared at her with so much venom that she had woken up with her skin burning. The Regina who would have taken her photograph, and burned it.

Not the Regina who took it because she simply wanted to look at it.

Emma wetted her lips and glanced at each photograph in turn once more. The unbrushed hair. The suspicious eyes. The bruises that had faded enough that only she could still see them twenty years later.

* * *

She could hear him crashing down the hallway at least thirty seconds before he arrived through the door.

'Hey, kid.' She spoke without looking up.

'Hi Emma,' Henry said, walking into the office and flopping himself down onto the chair opposite her desk. A moment of silence passed between them before Emma looked up.

He was frowning at her.

'What?' she asked, dropping her papers on the desk.

'You look kinda... pale.' Henry narrowed his eyes. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine,' Emma replied, smiling at him. He tilted his head to one side as the circles beneath her eyes darkened. 'I'm _your_ mom, remember? You don't have to keep checking up on me.'

'I wouldn't,' Henry said, crossing his arms over his chest. 'If you didn't look like you're ill or something.'

'I'm not ill,' Emma scowled. 'I'm just a bit tired. It's no big deal.'

Henry considered this for a moment. At some point over the last ten years he had picked up the same cool gaze that Regina always wore so well, and Emma nearly jumped when she saw it creeping across his young face.

'But I thought that you were sleeping better now.'

At this, she did jump. 'I never said anything about—'

'I'm not an idiot,' Henry interrupted. 'The dark circles and the yawning and the accidentally calling me August: they've been bad for ages, but they've been getting better. Now you're tired again.'

Emma tried to smile. 'You noticed that, huh?'

'I didn't want to say anything,' he replied. 'In case it upset you.'

'It wouldn't upset me, kid, I promise. I just thought that I was doing better too.'

'So what's changed?'

'Nothing,' Emma said. No way was she telling him that she was having nightmares. Not a chance. 'It's just hot in my bedroom at the moment, I think.'

'It's the middle of November.'

'Our heating's been fixed, smart ass,' Emma threw back. Henry's eyebrows shot up at the expletive, as they always did, and he smothered a giggle. But he still looked worried: he knew that their central heating had always been just fine.

'Anyway,' Emma quickly said, smiling at him. 'Enough about that. How are you? How's school?'

Henry wrinkled his nose. 'It's fine. Miss Blanchard is still acting all lovey-dovey, which is good.'

Emma rolled her eyes. 'I guess so.'

'You _guess _so?' Henry said. 'Operation Cobra is working, Emma – Snow White and Prince Charming are actually together and the Evil Queen doesn't even know. It's _perfect._'

Emma begged her face to remain perfectly impassive. 'Of course,' she said slowly. 'As long as Snow White's happy, I guess.'

Henry flinched. He opened his mouth to say the words that he always wanted to say – that it _was _true. That if she just spoke to August and looked at his leg then she'd see that he'd been right all along. That she _was _bringing back the happy endings.

But then he saw the look on her face. The moment that he'd called Regina the Evil Queen, her expression had gone tight – if he managed to convince her now that he was telling the truth, it would mean her realising that Regina was exactly who he'd said she was. It would mean destroying the friendship that they'd all worked so hard to build. Emma couldn't deal with that right now.

He wondered how he'd never considered that before.

'How is your mom?' Emma suddenly asked. Henry couldn't help but grin.

'She's good,' he said, settling back in his chair. Emma eyed the wide smile that had appeared on his face with considerable suspicion. 'She's really good, actually. She's much happier nowadays, and the other night she let me watch TV even though I hadn't finished my homework yet.'

'That's great,' Emma said slowly. 'Really. But you're scaring me a little bit. What's with the manic grin?'

'You're the one making her happy,' Henry said.

Emma nearly knocked over her coffee mug. 'I am?'

'She's never really had a friend before,' Henry said. 'Just Kathryn. And she doesn't count.'

'Why not? Because you don't like her?'

'Because she wasn't a real friend,' Henry shrugged. 'They didn't get each other. Not like you two do.'

'No offence kid, but how the hell would you know how much me and your mom get one another?'

'Because I pay attention,' Henry said, grinning again. 'You just do. And you know it.'

Much to her own annoyance, Emma could feel the corners of her mouth automatically quirking upwards. Henry saw it immediately and laughed.

'Wipe that smug look off of your face,' she said, pretending to glare. 'It's seriously unattractive.'

Henry pulled the most grotesque face that he could manage. 'Since when do I care about being attractive?'

'Since you're the son of a seriously attractive woman. You need to uphold the family honour and all.'

'Are you talking about you, or about my mom?'

'Me!' Emma gasped, outraged. Then she shrugged. 'Well. Maybe your mom a little bit too. But don't you dare tell her I said that – her head's already so big that it doesn't fit into this office anymore.'

Henry snorted with laughter. 'So when are you coming round for dinner again? You said that you'd come and look at my science project.'

'Soon,' Emma said, swivelling round in her chair. 'I mean, whenever your mom will have me. It's her house, so I guess it's kind of up to her when I'm allowed in it.'

'I'm pretty sure that you're allowed in whenever you want.'

'You are?'

'Yep.'

'It's funny. It never felt that way when I used to show up every other day.'

'That's because you were still Miss Swan then.'

Emma blinked. '…I'm not Miss Swan anymore?'

'Nope,' Henry replied, smiling. 'You're just Emma now. If I ask her to have you round, she'll say yes. I know it.'

Emma nodded. There was something cold squeezing at her stomach and she fought to ignore it.

'So you'll come over soon?' Henry continued. Emma swallowed, then she nodded.

'Sure,' she said, watching her son's face collapsing into a relieved grin. 'As soon as I can.'

'Great,' he said, leaping up from his seat. 'I should go. I think I'm already late for my appointment with Archie.'

Emma raised one eyebrow. 'Good to see that tardiness is apparently genetic.'

Henry just laughed as he turned for the door. 'See you later, Emma.'

'See you, kid.'

She listened to the sound of his footsteps retreating down the hallway with her hands unconsciously resting on her stomach, as they often did whenever he was around. Like she had to remind herself that that smart, incredible boy had actually come from her.

That same cold feeling was still wriggling about beneath her feelings. When she finally let herself explore it, Emma was forced to ask herself whether it was excitement, or absolute terror.

She slowly realised that it might be both. She wasn't sure that she minded.

* * *

_**A/N: **if you want to say hi on tumblr, I'm **starsthatburn **over there as well! xx_


	19. Chapter 19

_**A/N:** Just a friendly reminder that you're all excellent human beings and I love you. Now carry on._

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen**

'No. I don't cuddle.'

Emma ignored this feebly-voiced protest, continuing to drape her legs across Regina's lap. She heard a frustrated groan coming from Regina's throat, but she knew that the glass of red wine that was clutched in her hand would stop her from pushing her away too vigorously. In the end she slumped back against the couch, defeated, as Emma's legs curled contentedly around her own.

'You're insufferable,' she muttered. When she looked around Emma was grinning at her.

'You do so cuddle.'

'With Henry, yes.'

'No. With me.'

'I do _not_.'

'Any time we've had sex. The other night I tried to get up for a glass of water and you practically tackled me back to the bed because you said that I was more comfortable than your mattress is.' Emma took a moment to raise one eyebrow. 'Thanks for _that_, by the way.'

She noticed then that Regina was blushing.

'That doesn't count.'

'Why not?'

'Because after we've… Afterwards, I'm always a little bit delirious. Cuddling doesn't offend me so much then.'

'Is that a compliment?'

Her green eyes flickered over Regina's face as she watched it trying not to smile.

'Absolutely not.'

Emma leaned towards her and planted a kiss on the small exposed patch of skin on her neck. 'I think it might have been.'

'You would. Like I said – you're insufferable.'

'And yet you're still cuddling me.'

'I am _not _cuddling you,' Regina replied, though even as she spoke she realised that her empty hand had found its way to the top of Emma's thigh and was rubbing a circle against the denim.

Emma noticed this too and snorted. 'If you say so.'

Regina simply rolled her eyes, saying nothing. Emma watched as she leaned forwards to place her wine glass on the table, deliberately not looking round at her, with a smirk on her face.

'Henry seemed happy tonight,' Emma said after a few moments, leaning her head back against the sofa.

Regina nodded, looking down at her lap. 'Yes. He did.'

'…is that not a good thing?'

'Of course it is. Why would you ask that?'

'Because as soon as I said it you looked like you wanted to strangle me.'

'I usually do.'

'Oh, _hilarious_. Come on: what's up?'

'Nothing.'

Emma nudged her with her elbow, waiting until Regina had finally looked back round at her before she spoke again.

'You're not still worried about him getting hurt, are you?'

'I always am,' Regina replied, biting down on her bottom lip. 'Aren't you?'

'It's a concern,' Emma said slowly, rolling her wine glass in her hand. The red liquid drifted dangerously close to the rim of the glass and it took all of the self-restraint that Regina had to not snatch it out of her hand. 'But there's no point in worrying about it until it actually becomes a problem.'

'It's always a problem, Miss Swan,' Regina snapped, her eyes still on the wine glass.

'Hey,' Emma frowned. 'Since when did I become Miss Swan again?'

'Since you went back to being your old thoughtless, pig-headed self.'

Emma narrowed her eyes. 'I'm not sure, but I _think _that that might have just gotten a little bit personal.'

'As astute an observation as you've ever made.'

'Stop picking a fight with me,' Emma sighed, leaning her head against the back of the couch once more. Regina's hand was still on her leg, but it had stopped moving. 'Just tell me what's actually bothering you.'

She looked at the muscle that was pulsing away in Regina's jaw for a few moments. Regina was still watching the glass that was tilting in her hand, her dark eyes narrowed and unblinking. But eventually she sighed, leaning back against the couch with her head only inches away from Emma's.

'Do you think that we're being selfish?'

Emma blinked.

'No.'

Regina looked across at her. 'That's it? Just, no?'

'Just, no,' Emma repeated. 'Not even at all. Regina… Jesus. Of all of the people in this town – of all of the people I've ever known – we are the least selfish people I can imagine. I don't know about you, but I've lived through twenty eight years of being alone and sad and not having a single reason why I should trust anyone. I've never had a reason to be happy, and so I just got used to feeling empty. And now… I'm giving myself the chance to feel something else. I'm giving you the chance too. That's all it is. No one can judge us for that.'

Regina turned her head towards her, pursing her lips for a moment as she considered this.

'You're so sure of that?'

Emma half-smiled. 'Well. Some people could probably manage it.'

Regina let herself laugh. She didn't feel much better – the thought of what it would do to Henry if he found about them never really got any easier for her. But she knew that Emma was, in some way, right: they deserved to be happy.

Or Emma did, at any rate.

She still wasn't entirely sure whether an ex-Evil Queen could ever truly redeem herself enough to deserve happiness, and love, and all of the things that she really, desperately wanted. But she still allowed herself to watch the easy smile that was tugging at Emma's lips and, for a moment, told herself that she was right. That she must deserve it, somehow.

She leaned towards Emma and pressed a small kiss onto her cheek. And then she quietly asked the question that she'd been putting off asking for weeks.

'Will you tell me about it?'

Emma frowned. 'About what?'

'Your life before Storybrooke,' Regina said, picturing the angry, bony child in the photograph that was locked in the bottom drawer of her desk. 'Your childhood.'

The transformation was immediate. Emma's eyes darkened, her shoulders tensed, and Regina could feel her trying to pull her legs away from where they were intertwined with her own.

'Hey,' she said, reaching out a hand to stop her from wriggling away. 'Emma. Wait. Okay, I shouldn't have asked. I just… I'm sorry. I just want to know.'

'Why do you want to know?' Emma muttered, taking an ungainly swig of her wine.

'Because I want to know what made you… you.'

Emma swallowed, looking surprised. Regina watched her carefully for a few more moments, taking in the uncertain frown on her forehead and the tense line of her jaw.

Eventually, she replied in a low voice. 'A lot of douchebags. A lot of people who didn't give a damn about me.'

She took another drink, and then she spoke again.

'A lot of feeling abandoned, being abandoned, and then abandoning others.'

Regina frowned. 'You didn't abandon Henry.'

'I let him go,' Emma said flatly. 'That's exactly what I did.'

'Yes, but—'

'It's okay, Regina,' Emma interrupted, draining the rest of her glass and leaning forwards to place it on the coffee table. Regina was too busy watching the way that the corners of her mouth had suddenly spiked downwards again to comment on how she hadn't used a coaster. 'Really. I mean, abandonment is what I know. My parents left me, then all the kids in my first foster home left me, then four foster families left me, and then Henry's dad left me. Someone had to carry on the tradition.'

'Emma…'

'It's fine. Really,' Emma continued, seemingly not even hearing Regina's feeble interruption. 'It all worked out alright. Henry got you. You deserved him a hell of a lot more than I did.'

'_Emma_.'

But Emma was ranting, and she couldn't stop. 'Obviously I never deserved him, because there has to be a reason why all of this stuff keeps happening to me. Why everyone fucks off the moment that they get close to me. Why Moe decided to take a gun to _my _head of all the people in this godforsaken town. God, can you imagine what I would have done to Henry if I _had_ raised him? If Neal had never left me and I'd never gone to jail and we'd raised the poor kid in the back of a wrecked-out Beetle? Jesus. You know, it really is okay, because maybe I had to suffer a bit for Henry to have a good life. And that's alright. Because I abandoned him but he found me again anyway. I abandoned him and it led me to you. Maybe that's okay. Maybe I should be grateful for my lazy goddamn parents and Neal fucking Cassidy. Maybe I should be grateful for Moe, because hey, even though I haven't slept through the night in nearly four months, at least I have someone to hold onto when I wake up.'

It was then, in the moment that Emma's eyes started to fill with tears, that Regina leaned across and grabbed hold of her wildly gesticulating hands. Emma bit down on her bottom lip, cutting herself off from saying anything more, and let herself catch her breath. Regina tugged on her wrists, pulling her in.

Eventually Emma stopped resisting. She let her legs slide back over Regina's, and she collapsed against her shoulder.

'That was his name?' Regina muttered into her blonde curls as she carefully smoothed them down. 'Neal Cassidy?'

Emma winced against her side. 'Yes.'

'He left you?'

'He… he did worse than that,' Emma replied, burying her face in the soft silk of Regina's shirt. 'But that's one thing that I really, really can't talk about. I'm sorry.'

'You don't have to apologise. I shouldn't have pushed you.'

'I'm sorry for ranting at you.'

'You don't have to apologise for that either.'

'And I'm sorry for spilling wine on the carpet.'

'Emma, you don't—wait, you did _what?!_'

But she heard the giggling coming from Emma's smothered face only a second later. Rolling her eyes to herself, Regina reached down for her chin and forced her to look back up at her again.

'You really are the most infuriating person that I've ever met.'

'I get that a lot,' Emma said, her teary eyes creasing at the corners. 'But I know that you still wouldn't change me.'

Regina leant forwards, pressing her lips softly against Emma's for just the tiniest moment.

'Not even a little bit.'

When she looked at Emma then, at the thin lips that were curved upwards into a weak smile, Regina couldn't help but blink a little at just how young she looked. Her blonde hair was a mess of curls streaming down her back and, pressed up against Regina's side with a shroud of tears still clinging onto the fronts of her eyes, she looked just like a child. She looked so much like the very child that Regina had seen in those torn, battered photographs that it startled her for a minute.

Emma saw the uncertainty that flickered across Regina's face in that moment, and she bit her lip.

'I do know that you looked at my photos.'

She said it quietly, but it surprised them both. Regina felt herself flinch.

'Oh,' she said, swallowing. 'How... how did you…?'

'Mary Margaret told me.'

'Oh,' Regina repeated. For some reason, it was all that she could think of to say.

Emma's green eyes flashed with interest as she watched the uncertainty that had appeared in Regina's face. They both waited for her to say something in response; to ask the next question – _did you take one?_

She opened her mouth to ask it. She wasn't sure if she even wanted to know the answer: if Regina did have it, she wasn't sure that she would really care that much. The only person who would care would be Regina herself, because she would flush with embarrassment at the fact that she had been caught out. Caught needing something so small and sentimental just to remind her of Emma, even though she suddenly, inexplicably, now had Emma herself.

Emma knew that if she asked the question then she would have to watch Regina's cheeks burn, her body tense, and her eyes darken. She would watch her pull away.

She wasn't sure that she could handle any of that.

Seeing her slumping back against the couch once more, the question dying on her lips, Regina released the breath that she had been holding. Then she decided to ask one of her own.

'Why do you keep them hidden away?'

Emma blinked. 'What?'

'The photos,' Regina said, reaching out to tuck a stray curl behind Emma's ear. 'Why are they always buried in that box?'

'I…' Emma swallowed, her forehead creasing. 'I don't know. I guess that I just don't really like looking at them.'

'You were looking at them that night,' Regina pointed out.

'Because I was blind drunk,' Emma replied. 'That's the only time that I do look at them.'

Regina frowned. 'Emma. Surely that's not—'

'I know,' she said flatly. 'It's unhealthy. I'm repressing shit. I know all of that.'

'Then why—'

'Because the beginning of my life really, really sucked,' Emma sighed, removing her hand from where it had been tracing a pattern across Regina's stomach. 'They were the first and worst eighteen years of my life, and thinking about them is just the most painful thing I can ever bring myself to do. So usually I don't do it at all unless I'm already miserable and feeling sorry for myself and have nothing else to lose.'

Regina considered this, already missing Emma's touch against the fabric of her shirt. 'You're not grateful for any of it at all?'

Emma's face fell flat. 'I don't know. I'm guessing for some reason that your childhood wasn't exactly a fairy tale either – are you grateful for any of _yours_?'

The very moment that the words had escaped from her lips Emma could feel Regina's body tensing up beside her. Her dark eyebrows pulled together, her fingers stopped skittering across Emma's leg, and her lips pursed forwards into an angry pout.

'What?' Emma asked.

'Nothing,' Regina replied, trying to suck in a breath through her teeth. 'I just… I don't talk about my childhood.'

'I had noticed,' Emma said, nudging her. 'Regina. Come on. It's only me.'

'You could be Dr Hopper if you liked,' Regina said. 'It wouldn't matter. I don't talk about my childhood.'

Emma fell silent for a moment, watching the muscle that was ticking away in Regina's jaw. And then she quietly said, 'But I've told you about mine.'

'I know,' Regina said. Her stomach was beginning to hurt. 'And I am sorry. But I don't talk about my childhood.'

'But I—'

'Emma,' Regina interrupted as calmly as she could. 'I mean it. I _do not _talk about my childhood.'

Emma opened her mouth to argue. To shout at her. To call her every hurtful name under the sun and then storm out of the house altogether. But then she saw just how little colour was left in Regina's cheeks; how her fingers were suddenly tangling anxiously together in her lap. How she couldn't quite bring herself to meet Emma's gaze because she knew that her eyes were dangerously close to filling with tears. Emma suddenly caught sight of all of this, and she bit down on her lip. There was a time to push: this wasn't it.

She squeezed down on Regina's hand just before she swung her legs off of her lap.

'I should go,' she said quietly.

Regina head immediately snapped up again.

'What?' she demanded. 'I thought that you were going to stay over tonight?'

'I think that might be pushing it a bit,' Emma said, rising to her feet. 'Knowing our luck, Henry will catch me and then he really will be scarred for life. I think I should probably just go home.'

'But,' Regina stammered, blinking furiously. 'I don't want you to leave.'

'You don't want to talk to me either,' Emma said, smiling in an attempt to lessen the bite of her words. 'It's okay. I get it. I just think I should go home now rather than later.'

'Before you start to resent me, you mean?'

Emma began to shrug on her blue jacket. 'Something like that.'

Regina sighed. 'Emma…'

'It's okay,' Emma said, looping her thumbs through the pockets of her jeans. 'You have issues that you aren't ready to talk about yet. I get it. I do. I just wish…'

'…what?'

'I wish that you would trust me as much as I trust you.'

Suddenly Regina was on her feet as well, reaching out to squeeze one of Emma's hands in her own. 'I _do _trust you. You know that I do.'

'Not enough to actually talk to me.'

'I talk to you all the time!'

'About Henry,' Emma said, smiling sadly. 'Or about work. Or about how annoying I am. But never about you. Never about anything real.'

'Emma—'

'And that's okay,' Emma said, finally squeezing back on her hand. 'Trust me; I get not wanting to let people in too deep. I just have to hope that one day you'll be brave enough to tell me these things.'

Regina swallowed. 'I—'

'It's just a bit concerning, though,' Emma continued quietly, releasing Regina's hand and pushing her own back into her pocket, 'because, right now, your face is telling me that I could be waiting forever.'

Regina couldn't argue. She had no right to argue. Not when she knew without a shadow of a doubt that the moment that she told Emma about how she grew up would have the be the exact same moment in which she told her about the Evil Queen whom she knew nothing about.

'Not forever,' she eventually managed to choke out. 'But not… yet.'

Emma smiled weakly. 'That'll have to be good enough, I guess.'

She turned towards the door, her shoulders slumped beneath her jacket. She wasn't exactly surprised – she was just disappointed. Regina had built walls so impossibly high around her that it was inevitable that it would take Emma longer than those few weeks to chip her way through them. It was just so disheartening to realise that the dent that she _had_ managed to make was so very, very small.

She reached out for the door handle, fighting the urge to sigh. Then she felt a hand on her arm, spinning her around until her back was forced up against the wall.

The kiss that Regina planted on her lips was close-lipped and desperate. She cradled Emma's face in her hands as she kissed her, holding onto her as tightly as she could physically manage with her eyes squeezed shut. Emma blinked in surprise before she let herself feel it. When she started to kiss back, Regina almost melted against her with relief.

Her kiss told Emma that she was sorry. That she hated herself, and that she was so, so sorry.

Eventually Emma was the one to pull away again. Regina took a tentative step away from her, looking terrified by the possibility that, by giving Emma the space to leave, she would run from the house and never look back. But, as she usually did, Emma lingered. She leaned forwards, pressing her forehead against Regina's, and closed her eyes.

'I'm not angry. I promise.'

Regina nodded. 'Okay.'

'But I am here,' Emma murmured. 'And I deserve for you to be too.'

She felt Regina tense again for a moment before she forced herself to nod once more.

'Am I still coming round on Friday night?' Emma asked, looking up again just in time to see Regina quickly scrubbing a finger beneath her left eye.

'Of course,' Regina said, trying to smile. 'I'll try and cook something that you'll actually eat.'

Emma laughed. 'You're too good to me.' She reached down to squeeze Regina's hand one last time, and then she finally turned to open the door. This time, Regina let her go.

* * *

Emma arrived home from work the following evening to find Mary Margaret doing the dishes. Emma immediately froze in the doorway – her roommate's face was creased into a vicious frown, and her hand was scrubbing so furiously at a plate that she feared for more than just a moment that she was about to break straight through it.

'Everything okay?' she asked slowly, shutting the door behind her as quietly as she could.

Mary Margaret didn't look up from the invisible spot that she was scratching at. 'David and I had a fight.'

'Oh,' Emma said, her stomach sinking. 'What about?'

'The same as ever,' Mary Margaret muttered. 'Kathryn.'

'He… still won't leave her?' Emma asked, sidling over to the breakfast bar and leaning against it.

'No,' she muttered in response, finally giving up on the plate and dropping it into the rack with a clatter. 'He says that he doesn't want to hurt her. He doesn't want to hurt _her_.'

'Mary Margaret…'

'You don't have to say "I told you so",' Mary Margaret sighed. 'I know that you're right. You've always been right. I just…'

'You love him,' Emma shrugged, much to her roommate's surprise. 'And he says that he loves you. I suppose you have the right to be a little bit pissed.'

Mary Margaret leaned forwards against the edge of the sink, sighing. 'Not quite as much as Kathryn would be, though.'

'No,' Emma admitted. 'Probably not.'

Mary Margaret began to slowly drain the water from the sink, now abandoning the other already clean dishes for the evening. 'I think I need a drink.'

Emma leapt to attention. 'I can help with that. Scotch okay?'

'Fine. Thanks.'

Emma walked across to the other side of the kitchen, seeking out the bottle that lived in the cabinet nearest the living room. As she approached it, her gaze was momentarily distracted by a parcel that was sitting on the coffee table.

'What's that?'

Mary Margaret glanced up, following Emma's gaze and spotting the packet.

'Oh. That came for you today.'

'Who's it from?'

'I have no idea. It was outside the door when I got home.'

Emma frowned. Grabbing hold of the bottle of scotch with one hand, she carried it over to the kitchen and poured out two glasses. The moment that Mary Margaret had settled down at the table with hers in hand, Emma slipped back over to the coffee table to take a closer look at the package.

She recognised the handwriting before she had even read her own name.

Making sure that Mary Margaret wasn't looking her way, she peeled back the wrapping and reached inside the parcel. Out of it she pulled a thick, leather-bound book with a note taped to the front.

Regina's swooping handwriting covered the small piece of paper:

_I may not be able to deal with my childhood yet, but I want to help you start dealing with yours._

_Whenever you're ready to look at those photos sober, I'll be here to help._

She hadn't signed it. She hadn't needed to.

Just as a unfamiliar warmth began to spread through her chest, Emma grasped the note between two fingers and pulled it away from the book's leather cover. Two words, embossed in a perfect gold script, appeared from beneath it.

PHOTO ALBUM

Her lips curved upwards into a delirious smile; one that made her cheeks hurt and her heartbeat thunder. She read those words over and over again, ignoring Mary Margaret's confused calls from behind her, until her eyes began to fill with tears, and the letters turned to a golden blur before her.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

Emma was stood in the doorway of the mayor's office for a full minute before Regina finally realised that someone was looking at her. She glanced up and, upon finding Emma watching her with a slightly bemused expression on her face, violently jumped in her seat.

'Emma,' she said, pressing a hand to the hollow of her throat. She hadn't seen the sheriff since their conversation in her living room two nights before, and she immediately found herself waiting for Emma to commence with the shouting and the resentment that she for some reason hadn't quite managed to come out with at the time. 'I'm sorry. I didn't hear you come in.'

Emma threw her a lopsided smile, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it.

'Yeah. I gathered that.'

Regina smiled weakly in response. 'What are you doing here?'

'Nothing really. I just… wanted to say thank you.'

Emma watched as Regina visibly sunk with relief. 'Oh. For what?'

'The present.'

'Ah. I see. So you did get it, then?' Regina asked, leaning back in her chair.

'I did,' Emma replied, crossing her hands over behind her back. 'So, thank you. It was… really great, actually.'

'I'm glad you liked it,' Regina replied, pushing her chair back and getting to her feet. She smiled as she leaned her hip against the side of her desk. 'But, you know, you could have emailed me to say that – you didn't have to come all the way down here.'

'I know,' Emma said, leaning her head back against the door. 'I just realised that the last time that I actually came to visit you at work was the day that I stormed in shouting at you about the town meeting. I thought maybe it would be nice to… overwrite that.'

As she always did, Regina flinched at the memory: at how that moment had been the very last time that she had ever seen the outraged, exasperated expression that she had always come to associate with Emma, before Moe had suddenly snatched it away from her.

'I see,' she eventually said, looking down at where her hand was resting on the desk. 'Well. That was certainly a nice thought. But I'm afraid it may have come at a bit of a bad time.'

'Did it?'

'Yes. I have a meeting in ten minutes… I have to clear up the office before the councillors arrive.'

Emma suddenly smirked. 'I know.'

'You do?'

'Yeah. All of the people waiting in the lobby told me. And your assistant. And your security guard. He nearly tackled me to the ground trying to stop me from coming up here.'

Regina blinked. 'But you came in anyway?'

'Yeah. I did.'

'…why?'

To answer, Emma dropped her gaze to the floor at Regina's feet and reached out one hand from behind her back. It found the door's lock. The sound of it clicking shut reverberated through the room, hitting Regina so hard in her chest that she wasn't sure that she could quite remember how to breathe for a moment.

As Regina stood there staring, her hands hanging uselessly by her sides, Emma strode across the room and grabbed hold of her by the front of her jacket. Regina had barely registered that she was being pushed backwards until suddenly the back wall of the office slammed against her spine, knocking the air out of her.

'What are you doing?' she stammered. Emma responded by burying her face against her neck, biting down just deep enough into the darkness below her hair that no one but her would be able to see the mark that she had left behind.

A breath shuddered from Regina's lungs as she reached up to Emma's shoulders to try and push her away. The tips of her fingers had barely made contact with the leather of her jacket before Emma's own hands reached out to snatch hold of her wrists, pinning them back against the wall. Her mouth fell forwards against Regina's protesting lips, cutting off the muted objection and turning it instead into a startled moan.

After a moment Emma started to let go of Regina's wrists, dragging her fingers across the fabric of her jacket until they reached the lapels. Holding Regina against the wall with her body, she tugged the jacket off of her shoulders and let it drop to the floor beside them. Regina groaned from somewhere deep within her throat, wordlessly telling Emma that they needed to stop, and yet never quite bringing herself to push her away again. Emma's knee had slipped between her legs, pushing the fabric of her skirt upwards, and even though it wasn't making contact with her just yet she could still feel its heavy presence like it was an animal waiting to pounce.

Emma kept kissing her, slowly undoing each and every button on her blouse, and Regina found herself letting her. The warmth of a tightly coiled body pressed so firmly up against her was so terrifying and familiar and addictive; like sitting next to a fire close enough to get burned, and as much as she told herself that she wanted Emma to stop touching her, she was already dryly laughing at herself for trying to convince herself of it.

When Emma's mouth returned to its favourite position at the base of her throat, Regina's eyes fluttered open to see shadows passing over the frosted glass of the office's door. She finally registered that she could hear voices outside.

'Emma,' she muttered, her voice low. 'You have to stop. They're all waiting.'

Emma responded by continuing to drag her teeth across her neck. Once she had finished unbuttoning Regina's shirt she let her hands skitter across the taut muscles of her stomach, crawling their way up to her breasts and squeezing down hard. Regina gasped, her head thudding back against the wall.

'Emma, please,' she groaned, her fingernails digging into the small of the sheriff's back. 'They're going to find us.'

'I locked it,' Emma muttered into her hair.

'But—'

Her protests were immediately cut off by Emma's lips as they found their way back onto hers. Regina heard herself sighing, and she instantly cursed herself for it. Then Emma's tongue found its way past her barely objecting lips and slowly, languidly, began to delve its way deeper into her mouth. Regina groaned yet again, slowly allowing her arms to slide fully around Emma's neck, as she finally permitted her own tongue reach forwards to meet it.

When she felt Regina finally responding, Emma grinned against her lips. She began to push her leg further forwards, forcing the weight of her body onto the flat surface of her thigh, and shivered at the gasp that was released from Regina's mouth when it finally found its anchor between her own legs.

'Oh, God,' Regina muttered, lacing her fingers through a mess of tangled curls. Her hips started to roll forwards to meet Emma's thigh of their own accord, and suddenly it appeared that she could do nothing to stop them. She knew that she must look desperate and ridiculous; clinging onto Emma as she pinned her against the wall, whimpering into her hair and grinding against the denim of her jeans like a cat in heat – but for some reason she had already stopped caring. She could feel Emma's fingernails raking down her bare back and she could faintly taste peanut butter on her tongue as she dragged it through her mouth. Every one of her senses was being drowned with Emma. She realised then it didn't matter if the door was locked or not – if someone walked in, it would take more than an outraged gasp and the judging looks of a group of councillors whom she didn't care about to make her stop swimming in it.

She groaned when she felt Emma's hands slipping out from underneath her shirt, desperately trying to pull her back again. And then she felt the prying fingers at the bottom of her skirt, teasing it upwards until her sheer black panties were fully exposed. She suddenly stopped struggling.

'Emma…' she said warningly – though, what she was warning her against, she couldn't say. Emma seemed to realise this too, and Regina watched as something wickedly dark flashed through the greenness of her eyes. She quickly leaned forwards and pressed a kiss onto Regina's pouting lips. A moan then shuddered through the both of them as she reached down and dragged the ridges of her knuckles against the already wet fabric of Regina's underwear.

Regina's head thudded back against the wall, the sound of Emma's name hissing from her mouth before either one of them could silence it. Emma smirked, leaning forwards and catching Regina's bottom lip between her front teeth so that she could gently tug it downwards. A perfect set of white teeth was exposed; carelessly parted so that Regina could try and suck in the room's heavy air. She felt Emma's knuckles retract from between her legs for just a moment and her breathing turned to moaning; her hands slipping down from their position around Emma's neck and instead taking up residence at the belt that was looped through her jeans. As she started to undo it, Emma suddenly snatched her hands up between their two bodies and pressed her mouth against Regina's ear.

'No,' she murmured, her breath warm and running across Regina's skin like melted caramel. 'Not today.'

'But—'

'No. Shut up,' Emma said, squeezing harder on Regina's wrists as she caught her earlobe with the tip of her tongue. Drawing it into her mouth with a sharp intake of breath, she continued to mutter into the shell of her ear. 'This is for you.'

'Emma…'

Emma laughed.

'And you can say my name all you want,' she murmured. 'Because I can get off on that alone, you know. I don't even need you to touch me.'

Regina's eyes snapped back open again.

'You—?'

'No. Stop talking.' Emma finally released Regina's wrists from her grip and pushed them down to her sides. 'Now.'

Regina bristled for only a moment, until she realised that her hands had found Emma's waist again and were using her belt simply to tug her back towards her. Emma glanced down, seeing this, and smirked.

'Better,' she hummed.

She pressed her lips back against Regina's, more softly this time; easing Regina's mouth open and curling her tongue through it like she was tasting ice cream. Outside the door there were more voices: they were talking loudly, impatiently. There were comments on the time and comments on the closed door. Regina screwed her eyes shut and ignored every single one of them.

She could feel Emma's hands leaving her neck and slipping back down her body once more. Stopping at her chest momentarily to graze two thumbs over aching nipples, her fingers began to tiptoe across the muscles of her stomach until they reached the skirt that was still bunched up around Regina's waist.

With every inch that they moved downwards, Regina could feel her chest beginning to swell with the effort of sucking in breath after breath. The feeling of Emma's nails skittering across her skin was light and almost ticklish; like cool breezes and nervous butterflies and waiting in line for a rollercoaster. Regina's lungs kept swelling, and suddenly she wasn't sure that they could take the strain of waiting for those fingers to find what they were looking for.

And then they reached the waistband of her panties, and the rollercoaster took off: a hundred miles an hour; rocketing her up into the sky, and backwards into the wall.

Gripping the back of Emma's neck with one hand, Regina pulled her forwards into a biting kiss just as a warm hand slipped down the front of her underwear. Her moan of relief was barely stifled by Emma's lips. As Emma began to drag the side of her index finger along the wet slit between Regina's legs, she could already feel her beginning to tremble against her chest. Emma reached up her free hand and gripped hold of Regina beneath her jaw, kissing her all the more fiercely, waiting until she heard that familiar pleading moan that Regina would never admit to vocalising. As soon as it came, Emma smirked and drove a single finger deep into her pussy.

The groan that came from Regina's lips vibrated through the both of them, and suddenly both of her arms were thrown around Emma's neck, hauling her forwards and tangling the pair of them together. Emma released Regina's throat from her grip and pressed her hand against the wall instead, holding them both up as she began to drive that finger in and out of her slick core. One finger became two, and Regina's quiet sighs became moans. Emma twisted her hand slightly within the confines of her panties and allowed the palm of her knuckle to roll against her clit, grinding against it with every few strokes and driving Regina's already heaving chest towards threatening to explode. Burying her face in Emma's neck, Regina bit down against her shoulder and tried to suppress a whimper. It reverberated through Emma's skin, raising tiny bumps along her aching arms, but somehow causing her to only work her fingers harder and faster and harsher.

As soon as Regina's moans became too erratic, Emma would ease off in the worst possible way. The moment that she felt Regina's breathing begin to slow, even just slightly, she would lean the whole weight of her body against the palm of her hand and shock the nerves in Regina's clit so severely that her whole body would arch like it had been electrocuted. Every time that Regina moaned into her ear, pleading with her to make her come, to please, please, _please_ put her out of her misery and give her what she wanted – she would stop moving altogether. She would kiss her lips tenderly to stop her from screaming and then pull back, smirking slightly to see the tears of frustration that were pricking at her dark eyes.

'Emma,' she croaked out, feeling Emma's knuckle graze momentarily against her clit as she withdrew from her panties entirely, trying her hardest not to scream out loud. 'Will you please… _please_… just—'

'Madame Mayor?'

A voice suddenly erupted from the other side of the door. Regina groaned to herself, her head thudding backwards against the wall. Emma leaned forwards, laughing, and dragged her tongue up the pulsing skin of her throat.

When he didn't receive a reply, the man on the other side of the door tentatively tried the handle. He found it locked, and both women heard his tersely impatient sigh.

'Mayor Mills? Is the meeting still going ahead?'

Swallowing down tears that would have verged on hysterical had they been allowed to surface, Regina took a deep breath.

'Yes,' she called out. 'I'll be right with you.'

Partially impressed and partially bitterly disappointed by how the mayor's voice hadn't so much as trembled, Emma abruptly pressed the palm of her hand against the throbbing wetness of her pussy. Before she could stop herself, Regina cried out; her hands reaching up to grab hold of Emma's jacket and tug her towards her.

'Oh _God_,' she spluttered, a tear leaking out from beneath her closed eyelids. Emma bit down on her lip, forcing back a moan of her own, and pushed two fingers easily back inside of her.

As Regina's body began to arch against the wall, her hips rolling in steadfast synchronisation with the driving motion of Emma's fingers, her groans only grew louder. Emma leaned forwards against her forehead, watching with fascination as Regina's usually perfectly composed face began to flush and tremble and succumb to a streak of agonised tears. Emma realised then that she couldn't possibly deny her what she was desperately looking for any longer – it would kill her. But not before Regina had raised her fingers to her throat and killed Emma herself.

Pressing her left hand over Regina's parted lips in a delusional attempt at silencing her, Emma finally pushed a third finger between the mayor's legs and began to grind the pad of her thumb against her throbbing clit. Regina cried out against her skin.

Leaning forwards and exhaling against the shell of her ear, Emma whispered, 'Be _quiet_, Madame Mayor. We don't want them getting jealous. Do we?'

Regina couldn't reply. The sound of Emma's voice, low with captivation and undeniable arousal, sent shivers running through every nerve in her body, and suddenly her whole frame was twitching. Emma pressed her hand more firmly against her mouth, trying to smother the frantic moans that were now erupting from deep within it: when that failed, she tore her hand away and replaced it with her lips.

As an arching, shattering orgasm finally began to surge throughout Regina's body, Emma could feel her name being sighed into her mouth without Regina ever saying it. Her fingers were clutched desperately onto the back of Emma's neck, clinging onto her and silently begging her to stop her from falling. Emma held onto her as tightly as she could, her right hand still driving between her legs, bringing Regina so high up on her peak that when she reached the top, she could have exploded. The room around her faded to nothing for a moment as that rollercoaster catapulted her into the stars, sucking the air itself from her body, with only the weight of Emma's frame pressed up against her reminding her that she needed to come back to earth again.

At long last, when her body had finally stopped shaking and she was collapsed back against the wall, Emma withdrew her fingers from between her legs. In that moment she allowed herself one gratuitous study of Regina's face: her cheeks were flushed, her lips were burned red with smeared lipstick, and her exposed chest was still heaving upwards as she struggled to catch her breath. She looked exhausted. She had never looked more beautiful.

When Regina finally opened her eyes, she found Emma watching her, languidly licking her fingers. Even as she glowered, Emma didn't bother to suppress the smug smile that was still playing about her lips.

'Oh, god,' Regina muttered to herself, pressing a sweaty palm against her forehead. 'We just… oh, no.'

Emma bit down on her bottom lip, trying not to laugh. 'Yeah. We did. _But, _if it helps – they probably only heard, like, the last two thirds of it.'

'_Miss Swan_,' Regina choked out, reaching down to tug her skirt back into place. Buttoning up her blouse with startling dexterity, she forced herself to look away from the woman who was stood so calmly before her. She wanted to be furious at her – she _was _furious at her. She was almost certain that she had never been angry before in her entire life. And yet, the moment that her clothes were back on and she had managed to take a single breath of sobering air, she found herself tumbling forwards and pulling Emma back into the most ferocious, possessive kiss that either of them had ever felt.

'You need to go,' she sighed as she pushed Emma away from her again.

Emma tilted her head to one side, still smirking slightly. 'Are you sure? I can hang around for a bit longer, if you want.'

Regina rolled her eyes, reaching out to wipe some of her own lipstick off of the sheriff's mouth. 'You know, you might just be my least favourite person in the world right now.'

'Really?' Emma said, catching Regina's hand and pressing a kiss against the inside of her wrist. 'Only _might_ be? That's disappointing. Who am I tying with for first place?'

Regina narrowed her eyes for a moment, then leaned forwards to press her lips against Emma's ear.

'The fools waiting outside,' she murmured, trailing one finger down Emma's shoulder, 'who are currently stopping me from getting my revenge against you right on the edge of this desk.'

She felt Emma immediately shiver. Allowing herself to claim that tiny victory, Regina pulled back once more.

'I want to see you tonight,' she said, watching as Emma nervously wetted her lips.

Emma nodded without needing to think about it; without even needing to reply. Regina's lips quirked upwards. Then Emma reached out to squeeze Regina's hand for one last moment, before taking a deep breath and striding over towards the locked door.

She threw it open with the bitterest, angriest look on her face that she could muster. The group of men and women who were waiting outside, some of whom were sat on the floor with their briefcases perched in their laps, collectively jumped.

'_Thank _you, Madame Mayor,' she threw over her shoulder. Regina found herself wincing at the tone – the tone that had once been so utterly, almost comfortably familiar, but was now like a blade between her ribs. 'For your _overwhelming _support.'

Emma turned back to glare at her, the faintest hint of a smile flashing through her eyes, before she stormed off down the corridor with her boots thudding against the floor.

One by one, a dozen pairs of eyes turned to slowly look at where Regina Mills was stood in the very centre of her office. She was blinking frantically, trying to regain her composure.

A few of the men exchanged looks as they were finally granted access to the office: it was a shame, really. Everyone had heard that the mayor and the sheriff had somehow, miraculously, become friends. From the looks on both of the women's faces though, teamed with the muffled sounds of shouting that had been coming from behind that frosted glass door, it would appear that things had slowly started to return to the way that they had once been.

The councillors shook their head in pity at the mayor, who was stumbling around the office with her cheeks still slightly flushed. _Poor woman, _they thought. _The sheriff must really have given it to her good._

* * *

_**A/N: **Sooooo that last time that I posted a smutty smutty chapter a lot of you got a bit mad at me because I didn't warn you that it was coming and then some people ended up accidentally reading it at work and were left feeling kind of uncomfortable for the rest of the day... so I WAS going to put a little warning at the start of this chapter. But then I was like YOU KNOW WHAT, NOPE, THAT'LL JUST RUIN THE **SURRRRRRRRRPRISE **so fuck it, I just left it and because of that I probably just ruined some of your days all over again. WHOOPSIE, SORRY GUYS. MY BAD! ;)_


	21. Chapter 21

_**A/N: **AGAIN, MASSIVE DELAYS WITH THIS CHAPTER AND I'M REALLY REALLY SORRY! Maybe from now on just assume it's going to be at least two weeks between updates and then we'll all be pleasantly surprised if I somehow manage to get my shit together in the meantime..._

_Also, I've had LOADS of people sending me really, really nice messages on tumblr this week. I have no idea why, there must be drugs in the water or something. But I wanted to say a huge thank you because it really means a lot to me :)_

_As always, thanks for reading! I bloody love the lot of you. I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

**Chapter Twenty One**

Regina had never been late in her entire life. She had never been simply on time before, either: up until that moment, she had always been exactly ten minutes early for absolutely everything. Emma had laughed at her for that on more than one occasion; at her ability to be punctual even in her earliness. But given that Emma fell at the complete opposite end of the spectrum to her, tumbling in and out of doors and windows and people's lives as late as she liked, Regina had had a hard time paying much heed to it.

And yet, after only a few months of the sheriff's irritating influence, Regina now found herself tripping down Main Street in her highest heels, not driving because she had forgotten to fill her car up with gas yet _again_, and trying not to break into an ungainly run for the last hundred feet towards City Hall because her latest meeting was starting in exactly three minutes and she wasn't even in the building yet.

The look that Emma had flashed towards her before she had clambered out of the window that morning almost made it worth it. If only Regina's heels would just stop slipping on the damp concrete whenever she tried to speed up, then she might even be able to forgive her.

City Hall finally appeared before her and she cut down the side path, her heels sinking into the perfectly manicured lawn as she made her way towards the back entrance to the building. Glancing down at her watch, she decided that being ten minutes early for her own meeting was probably excessive anyway: as long as she could make it into her office before the councillors arrived and were forced to wait outside of it for the second time that week, then surely that was more than good enough.

_Oh, God_, she groaned to herself as she reached out a hand to open the back door. _She really is ruining you._

She rolled her eyes and turned the door handle, going to take a step into the darkness of the building. Then something caught her eye, and she stopped.

The clock tower was chiming nine o'clock and she was officially late, but she still let the door swing shut so that she could start to walk back across the grass. At first she moved slowly - then her steps progressed into what could almost be called a run.

'No,' she muttered to herself, her purse dropping to the grass beside her. '_No_.'

She reached out a hand before she had even ground to a halt, plucking the nearest apple down from its low branch. Her fingernails immediately sunk into flesh that was soft and warm, decaying beneath a red skin that had turned black overnight. She gasped, watching as something brown oozed out onto her palm, and dropped the object to the ground. It rolled to her feet, the indents of her fingers still bruising its rotten surface.

Dark eyes, blinking furiously, snapped up to look at the rest of the tree. She spotted at least ten other rotten apples at first glance, then another dozen when she peered more closely. She quickly realised that the whole tree wasn't dying – not yet. The vast majority of its fruit was still glisteningly red and waiting to be picked. But Regina's mouth had gone dry and her stomach was turning at the mere thought of biting into one.

The tree why dying. _Why was the tree dying?_

She took half a step backwards, away from the rotten apple that was still resting at her feet, and swallowed. For some reason everything suddenly seemed completely, worryingly still.

The same thought kept flashing through her mind and she closed her eyes, trying to ignore it.

_You're being ridiculous_, she told herself firmly, shaking her head at the ground. _It's just… the weather. We've had a warm summer and the tree isn't used to it. It'll be okay again in a few months. It's not dying. It is _not_ dying._

But Regina had learned to be a realist, and her stomach was already twisting into knots as that one sentence that Emma had uttered to her all those weeks ago stubbornly clawed its way back inside her mind.

'Henry seems to think that if the Evil Queen is no longer evil,' she had said, her lips twisting into an amused smirk, 'then her curse won't last very long.'

Again, that plummet of her stomach like a stone tumbling through cold water. She pressed a hand over her eyes.

_It's absurd. It's not possible._

'And, given that he's apparently realised that you're not _actually_ evil – congratulations.'

No.

'Consider your curse effectually weakened.'

_No_.

She snapped the last word at herself so firmly that she had to question for a moment whether she had said it out loud. Forcing her eyes back open, Regina sucked in a breath and stood up straight once more. The rotting apples didn't catch the sun in the same way that the healthy ones did, and yet they still seemed to wink at her.

'Stop it,' she muttered under her breath, taking a slow, steady step away from the tree. 'You're being ridiculous. You _know _that you're being ridiculous.'

She turned back to the side door of City Hall and started to walk towards it. After a few steps she bent to pick up the purse that she had dropped.

'It's unbreakable,' she told herself. Even to her own ears, it didn't sound especially convincing.

She kept walking with her chin thrust into the air. Noises were slowly coming back to her.

'It's unbreakable,' she repeated more firmly. The ache in her stomach lessened ever so slightly.

She reached the door and, for the second time that morning, went to walk inside the building. She stopped at the last moment, turning her head so that she could gaze back over at her beloved tree. Its branches were still strong, its bark was still thick. But it had been damaged. It had been weakened. She had dragged it over to this world and now it was dying.

She sighed, pushing the door open without looking back again.

Realising then that she felt more guilty about hurting her tree than she did about any of the other things that she had done, the twisting in her stomach returned.

_You're still that person_, she told herself sadly. _Congratulations. The curse still stands._

* * *

Regina was halfway up the stairs, ready to go to her bedroom and change out of her uncomfortably tight heels, when she heard the knock at the front door. Her stomach plummeted: she was exhausted, and the very last thing that she wanted to deal with right then was having to field off yet another desperate, pleading visit from Sidney Glass.

Regina turned on herself and walked back down the stairs, straightening her back. She took a breath and pulled open the door.

When she saw Emma waiting for her, the aching in her stomach turned into something else entirely.

'Emma,' she said. She couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice, nor could she suppress the smile that always stubbornly tugged at her cheeks. 'Is everything okay?'

Emma was fidgeting from one foot to the other, her hands behind her back. As Regina watched her shuffling about on her doorstep, her green eyes pinned to the floor between them, a familiar feeling of warmth flooded through her. She almost didn't want it to: the image of her tree, lonely and dying, was still bothering her, and part of her wanted to blame Emma for that. She couldn't explain what had happened, but somehow she knew that Emma was responsible for it.

And yet the fluttering in her stomach wouldn't stop and suddenly the headache that had been plaguing her all day long had started to ebb away. She watched Emma fidgeting and felt such an overwhelming affection for her awkwardness that instead of getting angry, she found herself smiling all the more.

'Yeah,' Emma eventually said, not looking up. When she turned slightly Regina could see that she was holding something behind her back. 'I just… I wanted to ask you something.'

'Okay,' Regina said, folding her arms across her chest. 'Would you like to come in?'

'Mm,' Emma said. She didn't move.

Regina sighed, leaning one shoulder against the door frame. 'Are you sure everything's alright?'

'Yeah,' Emma responded too quickly. She looked up then, and Regina noticed at once that she was blinking too rapidly. 'I'm fine. I just… sorry. I don't know why this is so difficult.'

That plummeting feeling returned to Regina's stomach like a sledgehammer.

'…why _what _is so difficult?'

Emma bit down on her bottom lip. 'Don't… don't laugh at me, okay?'

'Okay…'

'I mean it.'

'Okay. I won't laugh. What have you done?'

A sigh escaped from Emma's lips before she quietly said, 'I've been trying to do this all day. I was at work and I had nothing to do, so… but I couldn't do it. I don't know why. So I was wondering…'

As her sentence teetered off into nothing, Regina took a small step forwards.

'Emma?' she asked softly. Emma's eyes immediately flicked back up again, absorbing the concern in Regina's expression, and she forced a smile.

'Sorry,' she mumbled. Finally she pulled the object out from behind her back. 'Will you… will you help me with this?'

Regina looked down and blinked: it was the photo album that she had given to her.

Relief flooded through her so quickly that she found herself laughing out loud.

'Jesus Christ, Regina! You promised that you wouldn't laugh!' Emma glared at her. She went to turn away and march off down the path, but Regina managed to snatch up her wrist and tug her backwards.

'I wasn't,' Regina said, still smiling weakly. 'I promise, I wasn't laughing at you. You just… you had me worried. I thought for a moment that you were going to break up with me.'

Emma frowned. 'Why the hell would I do that?'

'I can think of a vast array of reasons,' Regina said, letting go of Emma's wrist and stepping to one side. 'But none that would have arisen overnight.'

Emma finally walked into the house, her shoulders still tense. Regina shut the door behind her and leaned back against it.

When Emma turned to face her, clutching the book to her chest like Henry did so often with his, something inside of Regina melted into a warm pool at the base of her stomach.

'So,' Regina said quietly, nodding towards the album. 'How much have you done?'

To answer, Emma opened the book to the very first page. It was blank.

'Ah.'

'I don't know why I'm finding it so difficult,' she shook her head, snapping the book shut again. 'I just… any time I get the photos out, my chest starts to hurt. And then I tried to lay them all out, to work out some kind of order, but they all sort of… I don't know. They blurred into one. And then I got frustrated and then I tore half of them up and then I had to spend the next half hour taping them back together again. So my progress hasn't exactly been outstanding.'

Regina's lips twisted into a smile. 'No. It doesn't sound like it.'

She took a step forwards, reaching out to squeeze Emma's hand, and started to lead her into the living room.

'Come on,' she said. 'Make yourself comfortable and I'll get you a drink – what would you like?'

'Do you have any scotch?'

Regina raised an eyebrow. 'I do, Emma, but it's barely 6 o'clock.'

Emma pulled a wodge of photos wrapped up in a brown envelope out of the back pocket of her jeans before she sat herself down on the couch. 'So that's almost six hours where I could have been drinking but haven't been. So I'll have a scotch, please.'

Regina rolled her eyes and left the room, moving across the house to get the drinks. At first she went to pour one glass of scotch and one glass of water. Then she found herself pausing, shrugging, and picking up two empty tumblers and the entire bottle.

When she returned to the living room she was expecting to find Emma exactly where she had left her. Instead, she walked into the room to find her sat cross-legged on the floor with the book laying closed in front of her and her jacket tossed onto the sofa.

Regina placed the bottle and the glasses on the coffee table and surveyed her for a moment.

'There is a couch, you know.'

'I realise that,' Emma said, not looking up. 'I prefer the floor.'

'You look like Henry.'

'Thanks…? Where is he, anyway?'

'With Archie. I have to pick him up in an hour.'

Emma nodded, her eyes still on the closed album. The photos remained in their envelope to one side.

Regina sighed, moving over to the sofa that Emma's back was resting against. Perching herself on the very edge of it, she leaned forwards and waited for Emma to do something.

She was waiting for several minutes.

Eventually Regina reached out, poured out the two drinks, and eased one into Emma's bunched fist. Even then she let it sit in her lap, tilting it slowly from side to side without drinking it. The photo album remained closed. The photos never left their envelope.

'Emma,' Regina finally said, trying to speak quietly as if she was afraid of making Emma jump. 'What is it?'

She heard Emma swallow worriedly before she responded. 'I… don't know.'

Regina couldn't see her face behind her usual curtain of blonde curls, but she could hear from her voice that Emma was frowning.

'You've looked at them before, Emma.'

'I know.'

'You know what's in there. And you know how it all worked out.'

'I know.'

'So you don't have to be afraid of it.'

'I'm not afraid,' Emma snapped, suddenly putting her glass to her lips and draining it in one swig. 'I'm just… kind of…'

'Terrified,' Regina finished for her. When Emma didn't respond, she sighed and looked down at the floor. She took a deep breath before she moved again.

Emma nearly cried when she looked round to see that Regina had joined her on the carpet; cross-legged with her posture as straight as a rod. It didn't look right, but it felt like someone had just wrapped a blanket around her. She smiled weakly.

'Yeah,' she agreed softly, reaching out to trail a finger over Regina's knee. 'Maybe terrified is about right.'

Regina watched her for a few moments, trying to get used to the feeling of her legs being curled up so tightly beneath her. 'I don't understand what you think there is to be afraid of.'

She spoke softly, without judgement, and Emma was surprised by how little her words grated on her. In response she held out her glass and let Regina refill it for her, sipping her second serving more sparingly.

'Emma?'

'I know,' she eventually responded, leaning back against the sofa and rolling her eyes to herself. 'It's pathetic. I'm pathetic. I get that.'

'You're not—'

'But it's hard,' she said, gripping the glass between her fingers and glaring down at the closed book. 'Because I try not to think about it. About any of it. Growing up in the foster system is… It's lonely. It's scary. And whenever I think that I've outgrown it, that I've become braver and stronger and so much _less_ alone, I just take one look at those photos and realise that I don't actually feel like anything's changed at all. Not really. The lights are still off and these waves of sadness still come out of nowhere, and looking back at actual evidence of what it was like to feel like that – so pathetic and utterly _worthless_ – for every day of my goddamn life… it hurts. That's… that's all there is to it. It hurts, Regina. It's painful to have a reminder of it.'

Regina's breath had caught in her lungs. What Emma had just said… the cold, hurt look in her eyes as she had said it… Something about it had struck a chord within her. It made her chest tighten as if leather bonds were once again magically wrapping their way around it.

'But it still doesn't deserve to just be all lumped together in a box,' was what she eventually said. Emma's eyes crawled over to meet hers. 'Your childhood was painful. Excruciatingly so. But it's still a part of you – rather that hiding it away beneath an old blanket, you should let it out. You may never be proud of it, but maybe you can accept it: maybe you can put it somewhere where you can always look back at it and be reminded of what you've _survived_ any time that you need to.'

Emma blinked, her forehead creasing slightly.

'That's why you want me to do this?' she asked.

'You survived what Moe did, Emma,' she said quietly, ignoring Emma's automatic flinch. 'That's what you do: you beat things. I just think that maybe it's time for you to appreciate yourself for just how good you are at it.'

A faint smile flickered across Emma's face. It was tinged with gratitude, but also unfathomable amounts of doubt.

'I'm not—'

'No,' Regina said firmly. 'For once, stop fighting. You don't have to keep doing that.'

'Don't I?' Emma sighed, nudging the photo album with the side of her glass. 'Because it's the only thing that's ever worked for me up until now. Even fighting with you was the only thing to actually bring us together. Why give up the habit of a lifetime when it's always worked so perfectly?'

Regina reached out to place a hand on Emma's knee. 'Perfectly?' she asked softly. Emma shrugged.

'Close enough.'

'Emma—'

'You're not going to get it, Regina,' Emma interrupted, placing her hand over Regina's to take the sting out of her words. 'You never will. I mean, I don't know what your childhood was like. Obviously. But at the end of the day, you at least had parents. If nothing else, you had someone to look after you. Someone to love you. That's all I ever wanted, all I've ever fought for, and I was never even good enough to have that.'

Her eyes flicked over just in time to see Regina flinching.

'Yes,' she muttered in response, her lips set in a tight smile. 'I suppose… yes. You're right.'

But Emma's eyes had already narrowed, taking in the way that Regina's shoulders had tensed up.

'Regina…?'

'No. You're right,' she quickly repeated, trying to smile. 'I shouldn't be telling you what to do here. It's not my place. I'm sorry.'

She suddenly got up – to leave, or simply to return to her more comfortable position on the couch, Emma wasn't sure. But either way, she found herself reaching out and quickly snatching up Regina's hand in her own.

'No,' she said, tugging on her fingers. Regina looked down at her with a sigh. 'Please don't walk off.'

'I'm not walking off,' she said, raising one eyebrow. She was partially hunched over from the weight of Emma hanging off of her arm, but she didn't try to shake her off. 'I just want a glass of water. I'm thirsty.'

Emma narrowed her eyes once more. 'You're not mad at me?'

'Why would I be mad at you?'

'You usually are,' Emma said. Then she sighed. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… I wasn't hinting about your childhood. It was an accident. You don't have to freak out on me.'

'I am _not _freaking out,' Regina groaned, although Emma could still feel her fingers trembling slightly. 'I really just wanted a glass of water.'

'You're sure?'

'Quite sure.'

'You're not going to storm off upstairs?'

'Only if you keep on badgering me with ridiculous questions.'

Emma slowly released her hand, pouting. 'You are mad at me.'

Groaning loudly, Regina collapsed back onto the couch. 'I am _not_ mad at you – you're just very, very annoying.'

Emma spun around on the spot so that she could rest her chin on the edge of the sofa cushion. 'Didn't we both know that already?'

'Sometimes I get a painful reminder of it.'

'True. But that wasn't _exactly _painful – not by our usual standards, anyway,' Emma said, running the back of one finger across Regina's knee. 'But I can probably up my game a bit though, if that's the sort of thing that you're after.'

Against her will, Regina could feel herself beginning to smile. She shook her head, hoping that Emma wouldn't see it.

'That won't be necessary right now.'

'You sure?' Emma insisted. 'A few scraping fingernails? A bit of teeth? Nothing sounding appealing?'

'No.'

'Really? All of my bruises have faded from last week. I'm sure you could do with some of your own this time.'

'Emma,' Regina finally gave in and laughed loudly, reaching forwards to put her hand over the blonde's grinning mouth. 'Please, _god_, just stop talking.'

Her laugh turned into a squeal as she felt Emma's tongue suddenly pressing against the palm of her hand. She snatched it away again, wiping the wetness off on her leg.

'That's disgusting!'

'Is it?! Well - I'll be sure to remember that the next time that you're begging me to put it between your—'

Throwing herself onto her knees on the carpet beside her, Regina silenced Emma in the only way she knew how: by pressing her lips against hers and waiting for her to stop smirking.

When she pulled away again, Emma's cheeks were slightly pink.

'You can't _always _shut me up by kissing me, you know,' she pouted. Regina laughed, wiping a trace of her own lipstick away from the corner of her mouth.

'Oh, I know,' she said smoothly, running the tip of her index finger down the side of Emma's throat. 'But don't worry – I have a few other methods stashed away as well.'

Emma raised one eyebrow. 'For a rainy day?'

'Something like that.'

'Pretty sure it's raining right now,' Emma said, twisting her lips upwards into a smile. 'Feel like making good on some of those?'

'Not especially,' Regina shrugged, leaning forwards to kiss the disappointed pout off of Emma's lips. 'Because I'm thirsty, and I still want that glass of water that you seem so intent on denying me.'

A snort of laughter erupted from Emma's nose as she reached out to grab hold of Regina's wrist, tugging her back down to the floor again before she could fully clamber to her feet.

'I'll get it,' she said. She threw Regina a smile before she pushed herself up from the carpet and started to walk away.

Regina curled her legs up beneath her, watching as Emma moved towards the door. A familiar, anxious feeling was squeezing at her stomach and it was starting to make her mouth go dry.

She somehow knew from the line of Emma's shoulders that she was still worried that she'd upset her. That tense line made her stomach hurt all the more.

She swallowed, glancing down at the carpet.

'Just so you know,' she said quietly, watching as Emma stopped in her tracks. 'Having parents and having people who love you… they're not necessarily the same thing.'

Emma was frozen in the doorway, looking out into the hall. Regina felt her heart stop beating as she waited for her to turn around.

When she did, her face was pale.

'…what?'

Regina bit down on her bottom lip, fixing her eyes on Emma's photo album. 'They're not… they're not the same.'

Emma slowly began to walk back over to the centre of the living room, her fists clenched by her sides. Regina refused to let herself watch her. She had to get the words out before the roaring sound in her ears drowned them.

'I know that your idiot roommate is under the impression that simply believing in the possibility of a happy ending will change the whole world,' she muttered as Emma's feet appeared on the carpet before her. 'But that's not the case: we both know that. Believing that something good will happen, or that things are about to change, or that someone might actually bring themselves to love you… that doesn't make anything any better. It just gives you false hope and puts you on a higher pedestal to fall from. So you may have spent your whole childhood fighting, Emma – fighting for happiness, fighting for yourself – but I can promise you, that's better than a childhood of sitting around and just hoping. Of not being able to fight at all.'

As Emma slowly seated herself on the ground before her, Regina sighed.

'I believed in happy endings for a very long time,' she continued in a voice that barely passed for a whisper. 'And it got me nowhere. It did nothing but hurt me. Because while you were fighting with the world and refusing to let it break you… I think I was already a bit broken.'

'Regina, stop,' Emma finally reached out, grasping her hands between her own. A shaky breath shuddered from Regina's chest. 'You don't have to do this. I… I didn't mean to push you. You can stop. I'm letting you stop.'

Regina looked up, trying to smile. 'That's all I can… that's all I can say. For now.'

Emma nodded fiercely, falling forwards so that she could kiss her with as much desperation as she could physically muster. 'And thank you for saying it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.'

As soon as Regina felt Emma's cool hands on the sides of her face, she felt the muscles in her stomach stop tensing. Her shoulders relaxed once again.

She'd never told anyone… _anything _like that before.

'I'm sorry,' she mumbled against Emma's lips, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. She heard Emma hiss slightly.

'Stop it,' she replied, kissing her again and again, pushing herself up onto her knees so that she could hold onto her face more firmly. 'Don't be sorry.'

As she pulled her closer she felt Regina's fingers starting to crawl up the fronts of her thighs. They settled against the flat surface, her thumbs rubbing those same soothing circles that they always seemed to whenever she was worried, and a small sigh trembled from her throat. Emma edged closer, tilting Regina's head back so that she could dip her tongue into her mouth. Her fingers began to slide upwards, tangling through her dark hair, as she felt a pair of hands gripping hold of her waist.

Regina could taste the apology in Emma's kisses. Her mouth moved somehow slowly and furiously at the same time, trying so hard to say sorry for inadvertently asking her the one question that she knew she wouldn't want to answer. But Regina was begging for just as much forgiveness as she kissed back – for not being able to tell her enough, not matter how desperately she wanted to.

She buried her teeth in Emma's bottom lip and listened to the whimper that followed. It was then that she felt fingers fumbling for the button on her pants, and she groaned. She forced herself to push Emma away again.

'Emma. I have to go and get Henry.'

Emma rolled her eyes, groaning. 'Sorry. I forgot. I must have been distracted.'

Smiling wickedly, Regina tugged her hands away from her hips. 'You usually are. I never know whether that says more about me or about you.'

'You,' Emma said firmly, leaning forwards to kiss her one more time before she clambered to her feet. 'Definitely you.'

She held out her hand, pulling Regina up to join her. After a moment of silence, she tentatively held out her arms. Regina fell into them without hesitation.

As she held her, Emma was reminded for the hundredth time just how tiny Regina actually was. Even now, still wearing her towering heels inside her own house, she was still shorter than Emma was and her head nestled perfectly into the crook of her neck.

She didn't know much more about her childhood. In fact, she was almost sure that she now understood it even less. But with her newfound knowledge of just how fucked up Regina truly was tugging away at the back of her mind, she tightened her arms around Regina's tiny frame and hoped that she knew that she would try and protect her. However she could. Whatever it took.

Regina felt it. It made her heart ache.

As they walked to the front door together, no longer touching and without a word passing between them, Emma shrugged her jacket back on. She offered Regina a tiny smile before she stepped out onto the porch.

She took two steps down the path, feeling Regina's eyes on her back as they always were whenever she left. Then she stopped. She sucked in a breath between her teeth.

'Just so _you_ know,' she echoed Regina's own words from moments before as she slowly turned around to face her. Regina was stood in the centre of the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her. Nervousness was pinched across every one of her dark features. 'You may have been right to worry about some things – not all endings are happy. Not all bad things go right. But worrying about whether someone will ever manage to love you…'

Her sentence wisped off into nothing as she swallowed, tugging at the sleeves of her jacket. Regina's heart clenched as she watched her.

Eventually Emma sighed again. 'You're worthy of love, Regina. And you're worthy of happiness.'

She smiled then, her slightly crooked teeth showing from between nervously parted lips.

'Believing in the possibility of a happy ending may be complete bullshit,' she said, shrugging. 'But letting yourself believe in _that_… now _that _is a very powerful thing.'

Regina blinked, feeling a familiar scratching at the back of her eyes.

'Emma…'

'Keep the photo album,' Emma said, tilting her head to one side. 'I'll be back. Next time, we'll do it together.'

'…together,' Regina choked out, swallowing down tears. 'Yes. Of course we will.'

Emma smiled again, nodding. Then finally she disappeared down the path, leaving Regina to shut the door behind her.

The clock was nearly striking seven o'clock and she knew that she needed to leave for Archie's office. But her spine had found the back of the door, and suddenly she was sliding down to the ground with her hand clutched over her chest.

_You're worthy of love, Regina_.

She wasn't sure that she believed it. But she was certain that Emma did.

The sight of Emma's eyes as she had said it, flashing almost blue with sincerity, had hit her harder than she had imagined possible. They somehow reminded her of another pair of eyes, from another lifetime.

...she hadn't thought about Daniel's eyes for a long time, she realised. After a moment she started to wonder what colour they had been.

She groaned to herself.

_Love is weakness_, her mother had once told her, and she had believed it for her entire life. So why was it that, the moment that she actually let someone see that weakness inside of her… there was that flash of blue in their eyes? That flash of certainty, and affection, and…?

Regina's head thudded back against the door.

She had told herself once that she didn't love Emma. Not yet, anyway – but she could. And now her heart was hurting and her stomach was knotting and that same flash of blue was hanging before her eyes like a curtain of stars.

_You're worthy of love, Regina_.

She buried her face in her hands. Tears dribbled down her cheeks even as they began to tug upwards into a smile.

The image of an apple, half-red and rotting from the inside, dangled before her.

_Oh, Regina, you foolish woman - what have you _done?


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty Two**

Footsteps echoed through the tunnel. In their entire existence those walls had only seen light once before; when a small boy with a flashlight had scurried through them several months before, looking for a tiny shred of hope. Now, another beam of light crept across them. Small pebbles clattered down from the ceiling with every heavy footstep.

It was pitch dark between those stone walls, but August's blue eyes were sharp. He was used to the darkness. He liked it.

He raised those eyes and scanned them across the roof of the tunnel. The bright beam of light from his flashlight left a trail for him to follow and, as he did so, he didn't blink. Not once. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the flat rock, on the darkest corners, on the cracks that ran down each sharp jut of stone. He kept looking, slowly and calmly. But, after fifteen minutes, his teeth began to grind together.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

He couldn't understand it – he was _convinced _that he would see something down here.

The sight of Regina's tree rotting; slowly weakening and breaking down, had made his stomach drop that morning. He had walked past City Hall, not even looking up, but had somehow sensed it. Sensed the walls around the town beginning to crumble. Sensing…

…sensing magic trying to leak back in.

He looked back up at the roof of the mine, sighing. Nothing. There was nothing.

_You need to be more patient_, he told himself, walking back towards the mouth of the tunnel. He held his flashlight out before him as he moved, even though his eyes had long since become accustomed to the darkness.

He rubbed a hand over them, groaning. In that moment, the bright beam of light glistened off of something that was buried deep into the wall. Something that, if August had been looking, would have looked a lot like a diamond.

But August wasn't looking.

He sighed to himself. Then he pulled his hand away from his eyes and kept moving towards the exit without turning back.

* * *

'Hey,' Henry said, looking up the moment that August walked into the diner. On his face was the same enormous grin that seemed to have become a regular feature over the last few weeks.

'Hey buddy,' August replied, sitting down in the booth opposite him. 'How's it going?'

'Great,' Henry breathed, leaning forwards against the edge of the table. 'Everything's great.'

'I can see that. You do look kind of… giddy.'

'Emma's been round for dinner four times in the last week,' Henry said, still grinning. 'It's amazing. My mom is laughing all the time now and Emma's finally putting on weight again and everyone's just… happy. It's great. Everything is really, really good.'

'I'm glad to hear that, buddy,' August said, smiling at him. He leaned back, stretching his left arm out over the back of the booth. 'I really am. It's about time that you had a reason to smile this much.'

He noticed then that Henry had the same slightly crooked bottom teeth that Emma did. He felt something tugging inside of his chest.

'It's funny, isn't it?' Henry said, relaxing back in his chair.

August frowned. 'What is?'

'This,' Henry said, gesturing around him. 'How things are now. How different everything suddenly is.'

'In a good way?'

'Of course,' Henry said. 'When we said that they should be friends, I didn't realise just how… _right_ it would be.'

August watched him as he spoke; at his eyes that were flashing excitedly with every word. He watched as the small boy shook his head, almost with disbelief, at what he heard himself saying.

But then he said the sentence that made the clocks stop ticking.

'I never even thought how much Emma would start to _trust_ her.'

In that moment it was as if something hard and metallic had hit August around the back of his head. He suddenly inhaled, narrowing his eyes.

Henry noticed this at once and blinked. 'What?'

August quickly tried to smile. 'Nothing,' he said. But his fingers were twitching against the leather of the booth and the lines around his eyes had deepened. 'I'm fine.'

'You're lying,' Henry said quietly.

'How can you tell?' August said. 'My nose isn't growing.'

'Funny,' Henry grumbled. 'August. You've gone weird. What is it?'

And August opened his mouth to lie, as he so often did. He prepared himself to laugh and deny it. To treat Henry like the ten year old that he was, rather than like the surprisingly grown up young man that he so often surprised them all with.

He went to do all of that – and then he stopped. Henry watched as he took a deep breath, like he was preparing himself for a battle.

'It's just…' he said slowly, his piercing eyes now looking down at the table. 'Something that I've been thinking about. Something that I've been trying really hard not to think about.'

Henry hesitated. Somehow, he knew what was coming next.

'Your mom…' August continued, sighing. 'Emma does trust her. She _really _trusts her. And that's great, and exciting, and a huge thing for both of them. But, Henry… it also causes us a few problems.'

Henry's whole body had gone cold, but the back of his neck was prickling with sweat.

When he finally replied, his voice was low. 'Because she trusts her more than anyone,' he said quietly. 'And when she finds out the truth… it'll hurt her even more.'

Something jarred inside of August. 'You've thought about it too?'

The boy nodded. '…I don't know why we never saw it as a problem. Before we started all of this.'

August sighed, rolling his head back against the leather cushion of the booth. 'I don't know, kid. I really don't. We were just… we were so caught up in the curse; so caught up in thinking that all we needed to do was to get Emma to believe in it.'

'But instead… we made her believe in my mom.' Henry said sadly.

'We did,' August said. 'And it's going to kill her.'

He wasn't exaggerating, and they both knew it.

When Moe had attacked Emma, he had ripped something from her: that sharpness that had always helped her to blaze a path through whatever she faced was suddenly blunt, and she was duller now. Softer. She flinched at loud noises and she had clung onto Regina because she had been led to truly believe that she was the only person in the world who wouldn't hurt her.

She would find out the truth. They both knew it. And when she did, she might not ever be able to grow those sharp edges back again.

August sighed. It wouldn't be his fault, but it would certainly be his doing. And he wasn't sure that he could cope with watching her shatter all over again.

'This is a problem, kid.'

'I know,' Henry replied with a sigh that ruffled his hair away from his forehead. 'I mean… the curse _has _to break. I know that. But… it just feels like by fixing what my mom did, we'll also be wrecking a whole lot more. She's finally happy, August. They both are. I don't want to be the person who ruins that.'

'She kind of ruined it for herself, buddy,' August said in a low voice. 'But I get you. And, if I'm honest… I'm not sure how either of them would recover from something like this. I'm not sure that either of them _could_.'

Henry frowned down at the table.

'Especially if Emma finds out about it all just because the curse breaks,' he muttered to himself. 'I mean, rather than being_ told_ about it.'

There was a pause. August gazed across the table at the boy who wasn't looking back at him: his hazel eyes were narrowed and fixed on the full cup of hot chocolate that was resting between his hands, her forehead furrowed deep in thought.

He cleared his throat. 'You… you think that Regina would do that? Tell her?'

'No,' Henry said flatly. 'But I wish that she would. Emma trusts her now – she might listen to her. She might understand it if it came from her.'

August felt himself nodding. He knew without hesitation that if Regina were to tell Emma the truth – if _she _were the one to tell her about who she really was… that would be the best chance that any of them had of getting her to believe it. Of getting her to understand it.

But he also knew with just as much certainty that that was never going to happen.

He sighed, leaning back once more.

Because Regina was afraid: August knew that, simply by watching the way that she looked at Emma. She was scared of what she was feeling, of what it really meant. Of what she would lose if Emma ever, ever found out the truth about her tainted, shameful self.

As Henry sipped at his drink, August felt that same tug of sadness inside his chest. There was a curse, and it needed breaking. It was Emma's destiny to do so.

But apparently it was also her destiny to get broken herself along the way.

August couldn't help but grind his teeth together, wondering why the world was always so intent on doing that to her.

* * *

'I could have _sworn _that you told me that you wanted to keep these dinners to a minimum,' Regina said. She was stood at the sink, arms submerged up to the elbow in the soapy water, with a smirk on her face.

Emma swatted at her with the dish towel that was in her hand.

'You could always stop letting me into the house if you have such a problem with it.'

'I never said that I had a problem,' Regina said, handing her a plate. 'I was just casually noting that you're a rather large hypocrite.'

'I can't help it if you make better food than Mary Margaret!'

'Surely that can't be difficult?'

'…she makes good breakfast. But for some reason her cooking skills kind of deteriorate over the course of the day.'

'That's probably because in the afternoon she's distracted thinking about running off to see that adulterous man whore of hers.'

'Regina.'

'What? It's probably true. Besides,' she said, looking over at where Emma was doing no drying up whatsoever. 'I can almost see her point.'

Emma nearly staggered backwards into the counter. 'You think about David?!'

'No, dear,' Regina said calmly, letting the water run down the drain. 'But I certainly get distracted through the day thinking about _you_.'

Emma's cheeks flushed.

'Regina,' she said. 'Henry might hear you.'

'It's fine. He's doing his homework.'

'Oh, right. Because we both know that that kid _always _does what he's told.'

Smirking at how Emma had somehow ended up pressed into the corner of the two worktops, Regina took a step towards her. She watched as Emma's eyes darkened.

'Like mother, like son,' Regina murmured, dragging her eyes down to the hollow of Emma's throat. Emma found that she didn't actually want to know which of them she was referring to.

She forced out a sigh, reaching up to nudge Regina's shoulder.

'You know that we can't do this here,' she said softly.

'Can't we?' Regina mused.

'No,' Emma said. 'Henry's in the next room, Regina. And I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but he's a kind of perceptive little shit.'

'True,' Regina murmured. 'But we can be quiet.'

'Regina.'

'Okay, maybe one of us can,' she said, her eyes flashing. Emma immediately glared and crossed her arms across her chest. 'Oh, what? It was a _joke_.'

'You should know by now, Madame Mayor, that your jokes are not funny.'

Regina let out a bark of laughter, finally taking a step back and giving Emma room to breath.

'My jokes are hilarious,' she said in a voice that thrummed with her teasing. 'It's just another of the many things that you cannot resist about me.'

As Emma forced herself not to laugh, shaking her head to herself, she didn't notice the kitchen door slowly creaking open. A pair of narrow, hazel eyes peered into the room.

'You need to stop saying things like that,' Emma said, reaching out with the dish towel and batting it against Regina's hip. 'Your head's big enough already. Soon it'll be so full of hot air that you'll start to float away.'

'I have plenty to be smug about, Miss Swan,' Regina said coolly, snatching the towel out of her hand and shaking her head as Emma giggled. 'It wouldn't hurt for you to appreciate me for all of my many redeeming qualities every once in a while.'

Eventually Emma stopped laughing, but a tiny smile still played about her lips.

'You know that I do.'

And Regina smiled in response.

'Yes,' she said, folding the towel neatly and hanging it up on its hook. 'I suppose that I do.'

Henry watched for just a moment as they looked at one another. He frowned: both of his mothers were only barely smiling; their lips curved upwards by just half a millimetre. And yet there was a gleam in each of their eyes, a warmth in their pink cheeks, that made them look as if they were beaming. They looked… radiant. Happy.

Like a prince in a forest when he realises that his ring is leading him exactly where he wants to be.

Henry slowly eased the door shut again, his forehead creasing.

_That's not right,_ he told himself, padding back across the hallway until he was back in his previous position on the living room floor. _They're friends. That's all. They're not… Snow and Charming. They don't like each other _that _much._

But then he heard the peals of laughter that rang from the kitchen as Emma once again took control of the dish towel and slapped it across Regina's hip. He saw the shine in both of their eyes as they came back into the room to join him.

He smiled up at both of them, his heart clenching in his chest.

_This isn't how I planned it_.

He swallowed down the taste of acid, trying not to look as Emma and Regina sat down on the sofa, side by side. But it was too late: he could feel it. He could see the way that they were looking at one another without ever glancing up.

He didn't understand – not really. He didn't understand why they were smiling like that. He didn't understand why they kept glancing at one another.

...except that he knew exactly why. He had read enough fairy stories to know what that look meant. He had seen the way that Mary Margaret watched David as he walked by with Kathryn, and he knew what love looked like when it leaked from someone's eyes.

But he didn't want to understand. Because this was already hard enough: this was already going to break them sooner or later. This made it worse. And this couldn't possibly get any worse.

* * *

'At what point in history,' Henry said, his shoulder pressing against Emma's arm, 'was _that _a good look?'

'It was the eighties, Henry,' Emma said, nudging him. 'You really think that you're going to look back at this cute little ensemble of yours in twenty years from now and still think that you look like hot shit? Think again, kid. It's going to be a train wreck.'

Henry sniggered, pointing down at the crumpled photograph that showed Emma wearing a pair of stonewashed denim overalls and scuffed white sneakers.

'_Nothing _can compare to this,' he laughed, prising the photo out of her fingers so that he could peer at it more closely.

Regina watched as Emma winced, forcing herself not to reach out and snatch it straight back.

'Well,' Regina said after a moment, waiting for the colour to return to Emma's cheeks. 'I didn't realise that I'd raised a sassy fashionista for a son. Tell me, Henry; do you have any opinions on the fall line just yet?'

'_Mom_. You're not funny.'

'Told you,' Emma muttered, forcing a smile. Her shoulders had relaxed slightly, and Regina let herself breathe.

'And I've told you,' she replied, smiling sweetly. 'I am _hilarious_.'

Emma and Henry's eyes met and simultaneously rolled. Regina felt that usual, inescapable twinge of solitude – the unignorable feeling that, even now, the pair of them would be better off without her.

But then Henry turned to face her. She was perched on the edge of the couch, away from the pair of them, while they were both sat cross-legged on the floor with Emma's still-empty photo album resting before them. He smiled at her.

'Are you going to come and help?'

She opened her mouth to reply. To say yes, and to join them on the soft carpet. But then she saw as Emma slowly turned to look up at where her son was kneeling beside her, her green eyes anxious but still somehow bright as she watched the smile that had spread across his face.

Suddenly the lonely squeezing in Regina's stomach subsided. She smiled back at him.

'I think Emma's got all the help she needs, Henry,' she said quietly. 'You two carry on. I'll be right here if you need me.'

Emma flashed her a worried look, expecting to see her sulking in the corner of the couch. Instead she found Regina looking calmly back at her, her face warm. She nodded to her to go on.

As Emma turned back to the album, Henry settling back down beside her, Regina watched them beginning to sort through the photos. Henry asked a lot of questions, she noticed: about how old she was, about where she was living. About what that foster home in particular was like. Regina also noticed that Emma didn't have a lot of answers and, when she did, they were quiet and strained. But they were there, at least. They were slowly trickling through.

Regina watched them working together for the next half hour. The photos were put into some sort of order – one that Henry laughed hysterically at because he seemed to entirely gauge it based on just how straggly Emma's hair was – until finally, painfully, Emma let him hand her the glue. She took a deep breath, laid out the first page flat, and stuck the photograph down.

It was the first photograph that she had of herself: a a cut-out from a newspaper three days after she had been found at the side of the road.

Regina bit down on her bottom lip, watching as Emma's shaking hands smoothed the thin paper down into the book. When the tips of her fingers reached the corners, she let out the breath that she had been holding and gently tapped the page: she had done it. There it was.

That tiny, timid gesture reminded Regina so strongly of her son's own innocent little quirks that she nearly choked.

She realised then, in a burst of something that felt like a fire, how she felt when she thought about Henry: warm. Heavy. Big and small all at once; like she was so full of love for him that her body might be crushed under the weight of it.

And then she looked at Emma, and she realised that the weight in her chest never lessened. In fact, it almost seemed to grow. Her ribs started to hurt with holding it in.

Both Henry and Emma heard her gasp and looked up just in time to see her pressing her hand over her heart.

'Mom?' Henry said, frowning. 'Are you okay?'

Regina's gaze flicked over to meet Emma's for a moment. She was watching her with narrowed eyes, not saying a word.

Regina swallowed, waiting for the burning in her chest to subside.

'I'm fine, dear,' she said, smiling. Because she was – she really was.

But she was also terrified, creaking under the weight of just how much her heart had grown over the last few months. It was like carrying a basket of apples that never stopped overflowing.

'You sure?' Emma said in a low voice, her eyes taking in the flush of Regina's cheeks.

Regina nodded, pulling her hand away from her chest.

'I'm sure,' she said, still smiling. 'I'm just fine.'

* * *

'At least if nothing else,' Regina said, returning to the living room half an hour later, 'Henry goes to sleep much quicker when you're here. You tire him out, apparently.'

'I have that effect on a lot of people,' Emma said, her eyes down on the open photo album. She and Henry had together managed to fill four pages before Regina had ushered him off to bed. She had returned expecting to see her still working on the page that they hadn't quite finished yet: but, just like she had been on nights before, Emma was simply staring down at it. Her shoulders were slumped again.

Perching herself on the very edge of the couch, Regina frowned.

'Emma…?'

'What is this about, Regina?' Emma asked. Her words came quickly and sharply, surprising them both.

'Excuse me?'

'This,' Emma said, nudging the album with the back of her knuckle. 'Why did you give me this?'

Regina's mouth opened for a moment, and then closed again. She swallowed. 'I've already told you. I—'

'No,' Emma interrupted, her voice flat. 'None of this "I want to help you accept your childhood" crap. It's bullshit. I don't buy it. There's something else here – you're trying to teach me something. What is it?'

Regina blinked. 'You really need to ask that?'

'Regina. Seriously,' she sighed again, rolling her eyes. 'It doesn't make any _difference _to you – I'm here. Okay? I'm yours. You've got me. You don't have to do stuff like this if it's just because you want me to stay.'

Regina's face clouded over. 'What...? That's not why I'm _doing _this, Emma. Why would you think that?'

'Because it's the only thing that makes a bit of sense.'

'Well. It doesn't actually make _any _sense. So that is not it.'

'Then tell me,' Emma said, leaning forwards with her elbows resting on her knees. 'Tell me why you're doing it.'

'Emma—'

'_Now_.'

Regina sucked in a breath through her teeth, narrowing her eyes. She watched Emma's face for a moment longer, taking in the petulant scowl that had long since been dragging her features downwards.

Eventually she leaned forwards, releasing her lower lip from between her teeth.

'Because you survived, Emma,' she said simply. 'You survived what he did. But you never let yourself see that: you only see yourself as someone who lost.'

'I don't—'

'No,' Regina interrupted, reaching out and tucking a stray strand of blonde behind Emma's ear. Her hand lingered for a moment beside the deep, grey scar that ran down her temple. 'Stop it – stop _belittling _yourself. You don't ever seem to realise what you've done and it drives me crazy. _That's _why I'm doing this. All I want is for you to see what I see – you're a survivor. You're a hero. You're exactly the kind of saviour that Henry sees, but you still seem to be completely terrified of the thought of it.'

Emma swallowed, feeling the coolness of Regina's hand pressing against the side of her face. She never blinked as she gazed up at her.

'Regina,' she said sadly. 'You're… you're wrong. I'm _no_ saviour. I'm not even a survivor. I'm a mess. I'm broken and… you're the only thing that holds me up. Sitting me down with a bunch of photos isn't going to miraculously stick all the pieces back together again, you know.'

There was a pause. Then Regina sighed, leaning forwards to bury a kiss on top of Emma's matted curls.

'I know,' she muttered into her hair, closing her eyes. 'I do know that. That's not what I'm trying to do.'

'Then what—?'

'You are _my _hero,' she said calmly. She felt Emma's body tense up beneath her. 'And the fact that you can't even see it… I can't have that. I won't allow it. Because you _are _a survivor, and you _are _a hero. You just only let yourself see the cracks.'

'The cracks don't go away,' Emma mumbled, breathing in the slightly smoky smell of Regina's shirt.

'I know that,' she replied. 'They probably never will. They're there and they always will be. But… they're battle scars, Emma. They're something to be proud of. You go through so much, you _fight _so hard, and you deserve to have something to show for it. These photos – they're your story. They're what you've managed to beat.'

Emma swallowed. 'Regina…'

'I just want you to see that,' she muttered, squeezing her eyes closed. 'That's all. I want you to see the fighter that I see. Because maybe, if you can start to appreciate what you _have _survived… maybe you'll finally stop thinking of yourself as someone who's been broken, and you'll see yourself as someone who's been fixed.'

* * *

_**A/N:** I struggled a bit with this chapter (hence the two and a half week delay...) so I really apologise if it's not my best work! I hope that some of you liked it all the same. Anyway - onwards!_


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty Three**

Underneath her thin silk pyjamas Regina could feel her body shivering. The clock tower somewhere on the other side of Storybrooke was chiming one o'clock and her eyes had been fighting her refusal to let them close for the last half hour, but she still remained sat upright in bed. She pulled the covers more tightly around her and cleared her throat. Reaching out a hand, she turned to the next page.

Emma's book was sitting in her lap. For some reason, looking at it without her there with her made Regina feel guilty. Something was squeezing at her stomach, telling her to stop even though Emma had already given her permission to go through it whenever she liked. This was the first time that Regina had done so. She already wished that she hadn't.

Over the last week Emma had been round to the mayor's mansion three times in order to work on that photo album. Progress had been haltingly slow, involving a worrying amount of tantrums whenever Emma had decided that she just didn't want to look at it anymore – but at least there was some progress to be had. The book now had photos sporadically spread throughout its pages, mapping out the distorted, fragmented timeline of Emma's life before Storybrooke had gotten its hands on her, and Regina found that looking at it all was slowly beginning to make her heart hurt. There was a roaring sound in her ears that wouldn't go away.

_She looks so… angry_.

Angry at herself. Angry at everyone. In every photo that familiar downturn of Emma's lips seemed only to grow sharper and her green eyes, Regina realised with a sigh, only seemed to become harder.

Emma was asking herself, year after year, the very same question that Henry had once, many years before, asked her: _but why would someone give me up?_

Regina suddenly snapped the book shut and kicked it to the end of her bed. She watched as it tumbled over the edge and landed on the carpet with a thud.

It was her fault, of course. All of it. That was a fact that never stopped niggling away at her; that never stopped making her want to spit at her own reflection whenever she looked in the mirror. But seeing it all laid out in that damned book that she herself had practically forced Emma to start building… it made something ache inside of her. It made her want to scrape the very skin from her arms because suddenly she didn't want to be in that cold, heartless body for another moment longer.

She fell back against her pillows, throwing an arm across her face. Quite inexplicably the image of her tree came to her, and she groaned with realisation: Emma, and the tree – they were the only two things in that entire world that she truly regretted hurting.

That tree had been uprooted time and time again, ripped from gardens and forced into new worlds where it could never truly belong. Regina had always felt like it was a part of her, for that reason. Only now was she realising that the tree was in fact Emma: she was just the person who had hacked it down in the first place.

Her stomach had gone cold again.

Thinking back to her son, who was sleeping soundly on the other side of the house, she found herself wondering yet again about his latest scheme to break her curse: how he seemed utterly convinced that, should his mother's evilness weaken… then it would too.

She couldn't explain why she felt quite so devastated by the fact that this would apparently never happen.

She broke people: that is what she did. She killed and she cheated, and yet for some reason she couldn't even bring herself to feel as guilty about that as she did about the fact that she had once uprooted a tree and then left a strange, blonde child to be raised alone.

Regina groaned, rubbing her hands over her tired eyes.

_You are banished_, she reminded herself of the words that even all those years ago had made her heart stop. _Banished to live alone with your misery._

Her misery had certainly followed her. And so, apparently, had her cruelty.

She swallowed, looking towards the end of the bed, where the reminder of just how cruel she could be now lay in a heap on the floor.

'It's never going to break,' she said out loud. Her voice was low, throbbing with something that sounded like regret. 'She'll never know.'

She clutched a hand over her chest the moment that the words left her lips. Because it hurt her to think of it – of how Emma could never, and would never, truly know who she was.

'She would leave if she found out,' she reminded herself, shaking her head. But for some reason, that sentence hurt her slightly less than the previous one.

She would rather have that: have Emma hate her and leave her, because she had for once in her life done a real, human thing. Even that was preferable to this – to keeping her trapped, locked inside a curse, loving somebody unlovable simply because she didn't know any different.

* * *

As soon as the clock in her office struck five o'clock, Emma leapt to her feet and headed for the door.

It was Tuesday. Henry always went to see Archie on Tuesdays, which meant that Regina would be at home alone and Emma had no reason to not go to her house to see her. Of course, this meant that she would also be forced to look at the photo album again – but it was worth it. It was always worth it

Any time that she saw the front cover of that damned book she felt her chest tighten slightly: looking through it was still impossibly hard, and yet… the touch of Regina's hand against her elbow, or the sight of an encouraging smile being thrown her way, somehow seemed to make it just that tiny bit easier.

It was worth it, either way. And that was all that she cared about.

She drove across town to Mifflin Street and, parking her bug against the kerb outside, strode up the path towards the front door. She gave her usual three, short knocks and waited for Regina to come and answer.

She didn't hear her coming before she suddenly arrived. Emma blinked when the door opened in front of her.

'Regina?'

Regina paused.

'Emma,' she replied, swallowing before she tried to smile. 'Hello. I... I didn't expect to see you today.'

Emma's eyes slid down Regina's body for a moment: something was different. She was wearing black slacks and a dark turtle neck sweater, and her hand had already crept up to grip at the thick fabric that covered her throat. But that wasn't what was strange: above it, Regina's face was pale and completely make up-less. Her usual fierce slash of lipstick had somehow disappeared and her dark hair was hanging limply from her head.

And below it all… she wasn't wearing any shoes.

Emma swallowed nervously.

'It's Tuesday,' she eventually managed to force out. Regina smiled again, nodding.

'Of course it is,' she said quietly. Her bare toes curled uncomfortably against the floor. 'Sorry. It must have, ah… slipped my mind.'

Emma nodded. 'Is now a bad time?'

'No,' Regina said quickly, stepping to one side despite herself. 'Of course not. Come in. I was just doing some… housework.'

Emma sidled past her. She hadn't felt this strange, awkward air around Regina for a long time, and she wasn't sure what to do in it. She felt like she didn't want to breath it in in case it poisoned her.

'Is everything okay?' she asked as Regina silently led her into the living room. The photo album was nowhere to be seen, but Emma didn't register this. She was too busy watching as Regina sat down on the couch and smiled up at her.

It didn't reach her eyes.

'Of course.'

Emma nodded, reluctantly joining her. Sitting this close to her, she couldn't help but notice that Regina had the same tell-tale signs of having not slept a wink that she recognised in her own mirror day in and day out. She bit down on her bottom lip.

'Regina…'

'Would you like a drink?' Regina suddenly asked, going to stand up again. Emma immediately reached out, snatching hold of her wrist and pulling her back down onto the sofa.

'No,' she said simply, shuffling closer to her. She watched as Regina flinched, trying to edge further backwards so that Emma couldn't see her puffy eyes or her pale skin. 'Regina? What's happened?'

'Nothing.'

'Bullshit. Something's wrong. Is it Henry?'

'Henry's fine, Miss Swan. I—'

'Emma.'

'What?'

'Not Miss Swan. Emma.'

'Right. Of course. Sorry – old habits die hard.'

Emma tilted her head to one side, pursing her lips slightly. 'You know you only do that when something's bothering you.'

'What?'

'Call me Miss Swan. You only do it if you're upset or angry… but you don't look angry to me.'

'Emma…'

'Tell me,' Emma said calmly, shuffling closer to her. When Regina opened her mouth to protest she reached out, trailing her hand down the side of her face until those dark eyes fluttered closed. 'Regina. Please.'

She heard Regina's breath hitch in her chest. She reached up and wrapped her fingers around Emma's wrist, but she didn't try and pull her hand away. Rather she almost seemed to press it closer to her cheek – like she was simply relishing the feeling of being touched.

She swallowed, then shook her head slightly.

'Why do you like me?' she asked quietly, her eyes still closed.

Emma blinked. 'Sorry?'

'You like me,' Regina repeated with a sigh. 'For some reason. Why is that?'

'I…' Emma faltered, watching as Regina's watery eyes flickered back open and stared up at her. 'I don't know what you mean. Why are you asking me?'

Regina opened her mouth to respond, then fell silent once more. Her eyes were darting across Emma's face, taking in the sharp, anxious downturn of her lips and the blue-green glisten of her oceanic eyes. She was memorising them. Emma flinched when she realised it.

'I'm asking because…' Regina cleared her throat, finally pulling Emma's hand away from her face. She drew it down onto her lap, clutching it between both of her own. 'I can't… understand why.'

Emma blinked. 'This is only an issue now?'

'No,' Regina sighed. 'I've always wondered. But right now… I don't know, Emma. I've just been thinking about it – about you, and me, and what you _need _in your life – and suddenly I'm confused as to why on earth, out of everyone you've ever met, you decided that _I _am the right person to give you all of that. Why _I _am the person that you think will be good for you, and keep you safe, and won't… hurt you.'

She watched as Emma's face clouded over. 'I… don't know any of that.'

'You don't?'

'Of course I don't,' Emma said, squeezing down on her fingers. 'How would I? I thought that Henry's father would look after me forever and look how that turned out. No… I just… I don't _know_, Regina. I just know that being with you, it… feels… right, somehow. It feels like I've been waiting in my darkened room for twenty eight years and suddenly you've shown up with a candle. That's it. That's all I know and that's all I want to know – that's enough for me.'

'So if I was someone else,' Regina said slowly, all of a sudden unable to meet Emma's eye. 'If I was… a bad person. Really bad. If I had hurt a lot of people… that still wouldn't bother you?'

Something sharp squeezed at Emma's chest. 'Regina?'

'_Would_ it?'

'…I don't know,' Emma said quietly, reaching out with the edge of her knuckle to tilt Regina's chin upwards. When Regina finally looked back at her once again, she was blinking furiously to stop her eyes from spilling over with tears. 'It would suck, obviously. It would. But if that's not who you are now…? If you'd _changed _since then? Then who the hell am I to judge you for what you may have done before. I mean, hell – you don't want to know what kind of mess I was when I was younger. I did all kinds of shit that would make your stomach turn. But I'm not that girl anymore – I'm not eighteen and I don't steal from convenience stores and I don't tend to end up in jail so much anymore either. Or, not recently, anyway.'

Regina forced a watery smile, watching as Emma's eyes softened.

'Everyone does stuff that they regret, Regina,' she said quietly, leaning forwards. 'Everyone. But as long as you move on from it, and try to make things right again – then who gives a shit? Not me. Never me.'

Regina's stomach plummeted. _Since when have you _ever _tried to make what you did right again, Your Majesty?_

'I wouldn't be so sure about that,' she said softly, leaning back against the couch.

Emma frowned, watching as Regina rubbed her hand over both of her eyes. She noticed then that her pants were slightly crumpled, and the nail varnish on her fingers was chipped. She didn't look like Regina, and it broke her heart.

Emma slid sideways across the couch, slipping one arm around Regina's narrow waist so that she could tug her towards her. Regina flinched, trying to pull away. And then suddenly she realised that her legs were draped across Emma's lap, her forehead was pressed into Emma's neck, and all she could smell was the scent of vanilla wafting from soft, clean blonde curls. She sighed, feeling Emma's fingers pressing against her ribs, and closed her eyes.

'Why are you worrying about this, Regina?'

Regina shrugged. 'One of us has to.'

'Has to _what_?' Emma said dryly, shaking her head. 'Pick holes in absolutely everything? Panic about things turning to shit when, for _once _in both of our lives, things are actually going well?'

Regina sighed. 'No. Emma… I just…'

'Stop _thinking _like this.'

'Like what?'

'Like I'm suddenly going to wake up and realise who I'm with and disappear forever. I know what I'm doing, Regina – I know what I'm here for.'

'And what is that?' Regina murmured, looking down at where her legs were childishly thrown over Emma's.

Emma leaned forwards against her forehead and muttered her response in one, easy word. 'You.'

The pain that had been stabbing through Regina's chest all day momentarily subsided, replaced by an overwhelming, drowning warmth that threatened to smother her then and there. Forcing down a smile, she buried her face in Emma's neck and pressed a kiss against the jut of her collar bone. She let that feeling envelope her for a moment – the feeling of someone holding her, and caring about her, and not giving a damn about the dark dresses and the dark past and the dark secrets that followed her. She let out an unsteady breath, feeling Emma's hold on her grow even tighter.

And then the words leaked from her lips, bubbling above the surface without her thinking about it. 'I just don't understand how this _happened_.'

Emma's body tensed up beneath hers. She replied on a sharp inhale. '…how what happened?'

'This. Us,' Regina sighed. She was talking to herself more than she was talking to Emma, and so the words kept dribbling from her mouth even when she told them not to. 'What we have. I don't understand how you fell into my life, so willing to be _near _me. So willing to be with me, when I've never deserved it. When I've never deserved you.'

Emma tried to pull away, ready to protest and force her to look back up at her again, but Regina tightened her grip on her tiny waist and continued to bury her face into her hair.

'It's so typical of you, you know,' she continued, mumbling the words into Emma's curls. 'You're chaotic. You tumble in and out of things without thinking about what you might break.'

She immediately felt the tightening of Emma's muscles beneath her fingertips.

'And what exactly have I broken, Madame Mayor?'

When Regina replied, her voice was flat. 'Me. You've broken me.'

'How have I—?'

Regina interrupted her with a sigh. A single sigh that told her just how exhausted she was.

She fell weakly against Emma's side before she said it.

'I'm in love with you, Emma.'

And there it was. The clocks stopped ticking.

When Emma didn't reply right away, she could feel Regina's body beginning to deflate beneath her touch. She sucked in a breath, trying to force out some words – any words. But there was a roaring in her ears and suddenly electricity was sparking through her nerves, short-circuiting her brain. She felt like she was on fire and her mind couldn't tell her how to move.

'You…' she eventually choked out. '…you are?'

The suspicion in her voice was palpable. But, beneath that, something that sounded dangerously like hopefulness was bubbling through.

Regina didn't hear it.

'_Yes_, Miss Swan,' she groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. 'And it is terrible. This is a complication - and you_ know _that I don't like complications.'

She couldn't see it but somehow, for some reason, she could feel Emma smiling into the top of her hair.

'Yeah,' she replied softly. 'I do know.'

With a huff, Regina suddenly pulled away from her. She left her legs outstretched across Emma's, but the rest of her body ended up leaning back against the arm of the sofa, her hands clutching at the soft material of the cushions. Emma watched her, biting down on her bottom lip with that faint smile still tugging at her cheeks.

'Like I said,' Regina snapped, glaring at her. 'This is _typical _of you – making me fall in love with you without my permission.'

Emma quickly bit at the inside of her cheek, forcing herself not to laugh.

'Yeah,' she choked out. 'I mean… that is something that I do a lot. It's all part of my charm.'

'You've _ruined _me,' Regina grumbled. 'I'm late for _everything_. I keep smiling at absolutely nothing like a complete fool. I haven't had more than four hours sleep a night in the last month and I can't concentrate on anything because all I can think about is you and when I'm going to see you next. You know that I served Henry chocolate cereal before school last week?'

'You _didn't_?' Emma said, smirking. 'God forbid.'

'He's only allowed that on Saturdays, Emma!' Regina sounded nearly hysterical as she threw her hands up into the air. 'And before you came along he wasn't even allowed that. See what else you've done? You've given our son tooth decay.'

Emma continued to bite down on her bottom lip, trying to stop herself from sniggering. 'Another part of my ingenious plan: move to Storybrooke, make the mayor… fall in love with me, and then force her to pay hundreds of dollars in dental bills. If you wait long enough then you'll see the fourth stage where I get the kid addicted to glue.'

'This isn't _funny_, Emma!' Regina finally exploded, glaring at her. 'You've made everything – _everything_ – complicated. I'm not supposed to love you! I'm not even supposed to _like _you. Things were so much simpler when I resented your every move and I spent my evenings dreaming about the ways in which I could make your untimely demise look like an accident. Now I spend them wishing that you were here, wondering what you're doing, wondering why I haven't heard from you all day. I've become weak and broken and _pathetic_, and it is all your fault.'

Finally Emma reached out, tucking a single strand of dark hair behind Regina's ear.

'But it _is_ funny,' she said softly, letting her hand linger against the side of Regina's face. 'Because you're acting like falling in love with me is the worst thing that you could possibly do. Like it's only going to lead to absolute disaster, and to you getting your heart broken.'

'And you're so sure that it isn't?' Regina muttered, watching as Emma's face creased into yet another smile.

'I am,' Emma said quietly.

'How?'

Emma's cheeks went pink for a moment as she sucked in a breath between her teeth.

'Because if you would take just one second to look around you,' she said, her eyes focusing on nothing but the nervous darkness of Regina's expression, 'you would notice that, actually – I'm in love with you too.'

And it felt like the moment before the rain starts.

Regina froze. She watched the way that Emma's eyes were flickering across her face, taking in every single glimmer of fear and confusion and hope. Sheer, cold terror licked at the base of her stomach. But beyond that – far beyond that, burning its way through it – was a sense of relief so strong that tears began to slide down her face without her realising.

'You… you are?' she choked out. 'You mean it?'

Emma half laughed, her face breaking into a pathetic grin that was so wide it made her eyes crease. She didn't need to reply to the question – she just nodded, watching the hot tears that were slipping down to Regina's lips, and leaned forwards to meet them.

Pressing Regina back against the arm of the couch, Emma let her hands trail up her body and rest on either side of her face. It was warm, and make up-less, and smiling. The feeling of it beneath her fingers made Emma groan from deep within her chest and all of a sudden her lips were moving furiously, her tongue snaking out and twirling around Regina's. Regina never resisted. She slid her hands down Emma's body, cupping her firmly around the back pockets of her jeans, and pulled her closer to her. As Emma pressed her body over hers, Regina let herself slide down flat across the couch. Emma's weight and warmth covered her, and it felt like she was being anchored. She grinned against Emma's lips once more, the relieved tears on her cheeks finally drying, as she hooked her fingers through the waistband of her jeans.

Emma's hands found their way to the bottom of her turtle neck, tugging it up and away from her body so quickly that Regina didn't even notice the light changing. Then suddenly Emma's mouth had separated from hers and was buried against her neck, sucking at her skin like it was a bowl of ice cream; dragging her front teeth across Regina's pulse point and only digging them in fully when she felt the piercing sensation of long nails raking down her lower back.

Regina bent her legs and wound them around Emma's waist, holding her tightly against her body. Emma sighed – her breath was so impossibly warm against Regina's throat. Regina's back arched slightly when she felt those now hopelessly familiar lips trailing further down her throat, reaching the sharp jut of her collar bone and hovering there for a moment. Her tongue sneaked out and buried itself in the shallow trench beside it. When Regina gasped, Emma grinned. Then she reached behind her, tightening the grip of the legs that were currently wrapped around her hips, before returning her hands to the sides of Regina's body.

She dragged her nails in a slow line down the bare flesh of Regina's stomach, letting them rise and fall against each arch of her ribcage. With every drop, Regina whimpered. Emma's blunt nails felt like blades, cutting burning paths through her skin, and she found that she almost wanted them to hurt. She wanted to feel as much of Emma as possible, to know that she was really, truly there – that she was hers and hers alone.

Then Regina felt her legs beginning to straighten out as they were carried downwards with the movement of Emma's body: she was inching backwards on the couch, dragging her tongue down the flatness between Regina's breasts. Regina moaned softly as her fingers lost contact with Emma's jacket, and she reached out vainly to try and grab hold of something else. In a flash, Emma had snatched up her wrists and pinned them down against the couch.

She laughed when Regina's eyes shot open in surprise. Then she returned to her previous position against her chest, nipping at every tiny millimetre of skin and shivering with every minute whimper that escaped from Regina's goose pimpled throat.

As Regina began to suck in her breaths, trying desperately to regain some control of herself when she couldn't have any control over the situation, Emma's eyes were curiously drawn to the way that her ribcage appeared and vanished beneath the translucent leaves of her skin. She leaned forwards, her eyes still open, and dragged the flat of her tongue across the round flesh of Regina's breast: the moment that she did, Regina's back arched and those ribs reappeared. They looked like the remains of a shipwreck, desperately trying to force their way through the sand.

Emma edged slightly further down her body and closed her eyes. As she rolled her tongue out from between her lips, she let it graze over the bars of that cage.

Regina moaned, throwing her head back, and Emma smirked into her skin: she bared her teeth and nipped gently at one of the bumps. She could feel Regina's heartbeat thundering both beneath her lips and beneath the fingers that were wrapped fiercely around her wrists, and with every frantic pulse that it gave she realised that she could feel her own chest starting to shudder. Sighing to herself, she buried her face against Regina's stomach and let her mouth trace the tiny waves that rode from her breasts down to her navel. When she reached the bottom rung of that ladder, she bit down again as sharply as she could. Regina suddenly groaned out loud, finally tearing her wrists free of Emma's grip and burying them in her hair.

As Emma pressed kisses along the lowest ridge of her ribcage, Regina tightened her legs around her body and began to let her hips roll forwards. Emma felt it, and she pinned her more firmly down into the couch to keep her still. Regina whimpered in response, bunching her hands into fists amongst Emma's curls and pulling, trying to drag her back upwards again to meet her gasping lips.

But Emma just propped herself up onto her elbows, smiling slyly.

'What?' Regina panted when she registered the sudden loss of contact. She saw the glint in Emma's eye, and for some reason felt her insides melt.

'I was just wondering if you're still mad at me,' she said quietly, raising one eyebrow. 'You know – for my wildly irresistible charms and all.'

Regina forced herself not to laugh. Trailing a single finger up the front of Emma's throat, she relished the sight of her forcing herself not to shiver.

'Of course I am,' she said in a low voice. 'I'm always angry at you, Miss Swan. It's just lucky for _you_ that, recently, I've learned to channel that into something slightly more productive.'

Emma's other eyebrow shot up. She bit down on her lower lip and smirked.

'Oh really?' she said coolly, leaning forwards until her lips were separated from Regina's by just the thinnest wisp of air. 'And what is _that_?'

Bracing her leg against the side of the couch, Regina suddenly twisted her body round until Emma was tumbling down to the carpet with a yelp. Regina landed on top of her, pinning her body down onto the ground, and crushed Emma's lips against her own. Emma's arms promptly slid around her neck, tugging her closer until their mouths were moving together in a mash of tongues and teeth and sighing. Regina edged her fingers underneath Emma's shirt, trailing the backs of her nails upwards until Emma shuddered so violently that her head automatically flung itself backwards. Regina watched her in that moment; taking in the smooth white flesh of her neck and the furiously thudding pulse that was scratching away below the surface. She felt her heart swell, and her stomach drop.

She bent forwards, pressing a kiss against the delicate skin of Emma's throat, and let her eyes flicker closed.

'I love you,' she murmured, kissing her again when she felt her pulse quicken. 'I love you, I love you, I love you.'

Emma's hands trailed up her back, digging into the dip of her spine and easing her upwards. Their mouths met once more, and even as they kissed slowly and fully and completely, Regina kept muttering the words that had been threatening to break out of her chest for so many weeks before.

Emma pulled away after a moment, reaching out to hold Regina's face between her hands. She looked up at her, at her heaving chest and her desperately worried eyes. She was almost certain that she fell in love with her all over again in that moment.

'I love you too,' she said simply. Regina's face cracked into a smile, and suddenly they fell together again.

Both of them could so easily feel the thundering of the other one's heartbeat against their own chest, and neither of them could quite tell them apart. Neither of them wanted to.

Because all of a sudden, neither Emma nor Regina could recognise the beating of the other woman's heart as something that didn't belong exclusively to them, and to them alone.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty Four**

That night, when Emma was pressed up against the bars of a cold jail cell with Moe's sweaty hand wrapped around her throat, she forced herself to watch as Regina entered the room. Her face was flat, expressionless. Her eyes weren't their usual caramel brown, but a black that was so dark that even the strange silver-blue light of the sheriff station seemed to be sucked into them. They weren't blinking. They watched blankly as Emma thrashed against Moe's unyielding grip, trying to cry out and failing as those thick fingers tightened around her neck.

But then, for the first time, Regina reached out a hand.

She was too far away from the cell wall for her fingers to make it through the bars, but if Emma stretched her arm through them then she might just about be able to latch onto her. She wasn't sure what that would achieve, but she knew that just the mere feeling of holding Regina beneath her fingers might be enough to stop her from screaming when the cold gun disappeared from its position at the base of her skull and inevitably went off in her ear.

Gritting her teeth together, Emma forced her arm through the bars that seemed so much narrower than usual and clawed at the air that separated her from Regina's unmoving, unsympathetic frame. The tips of her fingers grazed against Regina's for a split second. In that moment, something changed.

The body pressed up against her was suddenly cold. The hand around her throat was smaller, cooler, and sharp nails were piercing against the thin skin over her jugular. Emma tried to ignore the transformation, just like she was trying ignore the spicy scent that had slowly begun to fill the cell. It was the smell of perfume and pancake syrup and wicked smiles, and it reminded her far too much of the very person that she was reaching out for.

Tears were streaming down her burning cheeks, but even through them she could see that the Regina who was stood in front of her wasn't the same Regina that she was inhaling.

The feeling of the body that was pressed up against her back was too familiar – even beneath the tightly laced corset and the thick skirts that seemed to be sitting between them, Emma could feel every curve of her body. She had them memorized.

She could hear her throaty chuckle in her ear as those nails pressed harder against her throat.

When she reached out once more, still desperately trying to get the black-eyed Regina to take her hand, something stopped her arm from working. Something that felt like gravity – like a magnetic force that made her skin glow blue and her fingers tingle – froze her arm in mid air. It somehow felt worse than the gun that was still resting against the back of her neck.

She snapped her head around to try and look at the person who had taken Moe's place. The sudden crack of a metal object against the side of her skull blinded her, and the inevitable bang of gunfire jolted her awake.

* * *

Emma's t-shirt was sticking to her body and her hair was plastered across her face, but she hadn't sprung upright like she normally did. She rubbed a hand over her eyes, the thundering sound of her own pulse throbbing painfully against her temples. She couldn't catch her breath fast enough.

When she opened her eyes again, she remembered where she was. She realised why she was quite so warm.

Regina was curled up against her back, her right arm flung over Emma's waist and her warm mouth pressed up against the base of her neck. Emma swallowed. Normally, that was the single best feeling in the world. But tonight… something else had been pressed against that same spot only seconds earlier, and she could already feel her toes curling with the desperate need to get away from it.

Lifting the arm away from her hip, she peeled her burning hot body away from Regina's and slipped out of the bed. She walked over to the window, throwing the curtains open so that she could hang her head outside and wait for the freezing cold Maine air to sober her up again. It made her eyes sting and dragged the damp hairs on the back of her neck up until they stood on end, but her head remained as cloudy as ever.

She let out a shuddering breath, resting her elbows on the windowsill. Storybrooke was silent outside of the window, which only made the drumming sound inside her head echo even louder.

After a few moments she began to pace around Regina's bedroom, her hands reaching up to peel her hair away from her neck so that she could begin to wrestle it into a damp braid that fell across one shoulder. Her fingers shook as she did so and half of her hair escaped almost at once, but she kept on braiding until she had run out of curls. Her breath was still coming out in short, sharp bursts that seemed to rattle from her chest, and where she had previously been burning hot she suddenly felt bitterly, freezing cold.

She stopped pacing for a moment, her eyes drifting back across to the bed where Regina still lay asleep.

The sharp scent of her still hung about her from her dream. The feeling of someone that felt so much like her, and yet so inconceivably, impossibly different, pressing up against her back with all the venom in the world holding her prisoner against those bars was still pinching at her shoulder blades. And yet all she wanted to do was crawl back between those sheets, shake Regina awake, and simply ask her to hold her. She wanted her to tell her that it was only a dream. To effortlessly remind her that she would never do anything to hurt her like Moe had done – ever.

But she saw the dark shadows that, even then, were pooling under Regina's eyes from weeks of little or no sleep, and she swallowed down the desire to drag her away from her own dreams. Clenching her fists by her sides, Emma released another rattling breath. Then she slowly let her feet lead her over to the other side of the room, where Regina's vanity table was.

The light that was streaming in from the moon was a watery shade of silver, and Emma's heartbeat tripped over itself when she noticed how similar it was to that same light that washed over her in her dreams. Pulling out the stool that lived beneath the table, she sat herself down, cross-legged, and rested her arms on her knees. She kept her eyes down for a few moments, listening to the jagged sounds of her own breathing and trying to distinguish it from the gentle inhales that were coming from the bed behind her. The rush of blood in her ears seemed to drown everything else out, but Regina sleeping was the one thing that she could still somehow hear. It was the only thing that made her fingernails stop digging into the palms of her hands.

When she looked up, she flinched at the sight of her reflection in the mirror. The blue-silver light that was snaking in through the open window was casting odd shadows across her face, and with her plaited hair hanging down across one of her hunched shoulders, she almost looked like a child.

Almost.

The angle of the moonlight meant that every line – every crease and wrinkle and furrow – looked like they had been drawn onto her skin with a pen. Her lips were fiercely downturned, her eyebrows were knitted together, and the lines that ran across her forehead suddenly looked like trenches.

But worse than that was the scar. The goddamn scar that she couldn't take her eyes off of.

Most days, she managed to avoid looking at the thick silver line that Moe had left embedded in her temple. Over the last few months she had learned how to tilt her head to one side when she walked past mirrors; how to smooth her make up over it perfectly flat without looking up. But now, the moonlight seemed to be swallowed by it. Just like Regina's dark, soulless eyes in her dream, the deep scar that was carved into the side of her head dragged the light cleanly out of the air and left her with a heavyset trench that made her face looked unbalanced, and ugly, and undeniably broken.

She could hide everything that Moe had done to her. Everything, except that scar.

She felt her heartbeat growing curiously slower as her eyes glued themselves to it. As it did so, an empty, tinny feeling seemed to wrap its fingers around her chest. It felt like there was suddenly nothing inside of it anymore: the thudding of her pulse disintegrated into absolutely nothing, and gradually all that she was left with was the cold empty feeling between her ribs that told her, after months of desperately trying to convince herself otherwise, that she was just as damaged and alone and unlovable as she'd always suspected.

She sat and she stared at herself for longer than she could count. It was only when the moon was finally trying to disappear behind the window frame that Regina finally stirred.

It was the cold that woke her: not the bitter iciness of the Maine winter that was sweeping in through the open window, but the chill that came from Emma no longer being by her side.

Rubbing a hand over her eyes, Regina propped herself up on one arm and looked blearily around the room. She was mostly expecting to see a faint light coming from under the bathroom door, telling her that Emma would be back in bed with her in less than a minute – but the door was wide open, and the room was dark. The only light that filled the room came from the parted curtains, where the weak, silvery moon was still leaking in from behind the glass.

Regina rubbed her eyes more vigorously, sitting herself upright in her half-empty bed. It was odd how Emma, whose body was so thin that it often hurt Regina to wrap her arms around it and whose natural temperature was somewhere dangerously close to freezing, could make her bed feel so warm that when she was absent from it, Regina could no longer sleep. Her arms felt empty. When she had woken up her hands had been clawing at the sheets, reaching for something that suddenly wasn't there anymore.

And then she saw the movement in the corner of the room. She saw Emma hunched over on the stool, cross-legged, peering at her own reflection with unblinking eyes.

Regina almost called out to her. Leaning back on her arm once more, she lazily smiled and watched the way that Emma's half-formed braid was dangling so childishly down the side of her body. She waited for Emma to feel her gaze on her.

But she didn't, and Regina slowly realised why:

Emma was crying.

Her left hand had reached up to her face and, after outstretching her index finger, she was dragging it down the trench that had been left there. At first it was a curious, almost tentative gesture – but then Regina watched as she repeated it, again and again, digging her fingernail into her own skin until even in that pale light Regina could see that it was turning pink.

It was when she noticed the smear of red at the end of Emma's finger that Regina finally jolted out of her haze. Emma was looking at herself with eyes that were sad and cold, and Regina knew without question that if she left her to look at herself like that for a moment longer, she would tear the rest of her skin off just to stop herself from having anything left to hate.

Regina flung her legs over the side of the bed and made her way across to that half-lit corner of the room.

Emma only seemed to notice her presence when she was crouched directly beside her, looking up at her tear-streaked face like she was looking up at Henry. Emma's hand paused in its movements, trembling against the bleeding skin.

Swallowing against her dry mouth, Regina slowly reaching out her own to take hold of Emma's blood-stained fingers. After resisting for a moment, Emma eventually let Regina pull it back down to her side.

She still didn't look down at the woman who was kneeling by her side. Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on her dazed reflection, she swallowed and let another wave of tears roll down her cheeks.

Regina reached up and tentatively touched the side of her face. As she let her thumb slowly trace down the now slightly deepened groove there, Emma shivered.

Her green eyes fell closed.

'Are you okay?' Regina murmured, continuing to stroke the side of her face as gently as she could. She could feel the hot, sticky blood clinging onto her fingers and it made her stomach clench, but she still didn't stop.

Emma swallowed, her eyes still closed. After a moment she shrugged.

'Sometimes.'

Slowly standing up, Regina moved behind Emma and slid her arms around her neck. She felt the immediate weight of Emma's chin resting on them, quickly accompanied by the slight stickiness of the tears that were still falling.

'But not tonight,' Regina whispered. It wasn't a question.

Emma shook her head anyway, sucking in a breath that rattled around inside her cold chest.

'No,' she said flatly. 'Not tonight.'

Regina paused. She watched Emma in the mirror for a moment, looking at the sharp dents beneath her collar bone and the white streak that ran down her face from where she had carved her own skin away. She felt the jut of her spine pressing against her stomach in a way that she somehow never seemed to when she was moving against her between her sheets.

She removed her arms from around her neck and leaned across Emma's shoulder. Dragging her damp, uncurling braid away from the side of her face, Regina leant forwards and pressed her lips against her temple. She tasted the metallic tang of blood and the sharp, saltiness of tears. It broke her heart.

But when she stood upright and held out her hand, Emma took it. She let Regina lead her back over to the bed and clambered back between the sheets without a word.

Regina didn't think about how she was going to get blood on her Egyptian cotton. When she curled up against Emma's back and wound her arms tightly around her waist, she somehow didn't even notice that her shirt was still clinging to her with sweat. Instead she nuzzled her face against Emma's sharp shoulder blade, breathing in the sleepy, cloudy scent of her. When she paused she realised that she could hear Emma doing the same thing.

'I'd recognise that smell anywhere,' Emma muttered sleepily.

Regina frowned against her back. 'What?'

Emma sniffled, pressing her throbbing temple more firmly against the cool pillow.

'I think it was the Evil Queen,' she said, her exhausted sentence blending together into one long word.

Regina flinched.

'…what was the Evil Queen?' she asked. Her voice was strained.

'She was in my dream.'

'She… she was?'

'Mm,' Emma murmured, reaching up for a moment to wipe her face with the back of her fist. 'Yeah.'

Regina swallowed, tightening her grip around Emma's waist. 'What was she doing?'

There was a pause, and for a moment Regina thought that Emma had fallen asleep. But then she wriggled closer, lacing their legs together.

'She was Moe.'

Regina froze, something cold dropping inside of her stomach. She opened her mouth to say something, but somehow words eluded her.

'But it's okay,' Emma continued on the wave of another yawn. She had felt Regina's body stiffening, but she couldn't see the way that her dark eyes had turned glassy. 'Because it wasn't you.'

'...it wasn't?'

'No. It was Henry's character.' Emma sniffled again, burying her face into the pillow. 'You wouldn't hurt me. You're not her. And you're definitely not him.'

She fell quiet then, her breathing becoming heavier. Regina was left to stare at the grey fabric of her shirt with something sharp scratching at the back of her throat.

She tightened her arms around Emma's waist, resting her cheek against her shoulder. She was so thin, but so warm.

She was so broken.

So unaware of who the hell she had just said those words to.

* * *

'Doesn't Miss Blanchard mind that you're never at home anymore?' Henry suddenly asked. Emma looked up from her mostly-full plate, raising her eyebrows.

Henry hadn't asked about the enormous band aid on the side of her face. He had somehow known not to.

'She's okay with it,' Emma replied after a moment, dragging her fork through a mound of mashed potato. She chose not to mention the fact that Mary Margaret hardly knew about her absence, because she herself was out of the apartment with David at least five nights a week. 'She knows that I'm spending time with you.'

'She doesn't miss you?'

'Nope,' Emma shrugged. Her posture was more slumped than usual. 'Guess I'm not very missable, kid.'

Unsure as to whether she was joking or not, Henry awkwardly laughed. Emma had been impossibly subdued all night, and it hadn't escaped him that Regina had been doing her absolute utmost to try and cheer her up.

For some reason they both still seemed to think that his being ten meant that he was also blind: that evening he had caught every single worried glance that Regina had thrown across the table towards her, and it was making his head hurt. He was being kept out of something again. Something more than just the fact that Emma was in a bad mood.

His eyes fell back onto that band aid and he frowned.

'Henry, sweetheart,' Regina suddenly said, making him jump. 'I think we've probably all finished our dinner – would you like to go and get dessert for me?'

Henry blinked.

'We haven't cleared the table yet,' he said slowly.

She just smiled.

'I know that,' she said, nodding towards the kitchen. 'It's okay. There's rocky road in the freezer.'

He glanced back across at Emma, who had since dropped her fork onto her plate but was still staring down into the pile of uneaten potato. After a moment he climbed down from his chair, shuffling across the dining room and into the hallway. Knowing that Regina wouldn't say a word until the kitchen door was closed, he slammed it shut behind him.

'Emma,' he heard her whispering as soon as he pressed his ear up against it, the ice cream clutched between his hands. 'Please. You have to stop this.'

'Stop what?' Emma mumbled. 'I'm not doing anything.'

'You're worrying me,' Regina said. 'And you're worrying Henry too. Can't you see that?'

'Of course I can see that, Regina,' Emma snapped. 'You don't think I hate myself enough today? I don't need to be made to feel guilty about this as well.'

Regina sighed. 'I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, Emma. I'm just concerned. Really concerned. I just want you to tell me what—'

'I'm fine.'

'Oh, for god's sake. Please don't start playing that old record again. I'm not an idiot.'

'And I'm not talking about this now.'

'You're not talking about this ever, it would seem.'

'Jesus Christ. _Regina_—'

'Emma, please.' Henry frowned. He had never heard his mother sound quite that… _desperate _before. 'Just look at me. Okay? _Look_ at me. I'm just trying to help. You know that, don't you? I'm not trying to make things difficult, or make you feel uncomfortable, or any of those things that you probably still have every right to feel suspicious about. I'm just trying to help you. I swear.'

There was a pause, and then Henry heard Emma sigh.

'I know,' she said quietly. 'I'm sorry – of course I know. I just… it's hard.'

'I know.'

'I'm not trying to push you out.'

'I know that too.'

'Just… I freaked out. That's all. I'm still freaking out. But… I'll be okay.'

Another pause. '…are you sure about that?'

'No,' Emma said. Henry sighed when he heard the smile come back into her voice. 'But I'll become better at hiding it when I'm not.'

Regina snorted with laughter. 'There's the mentally unstable sheriff that I know so well.'

Emma chuckled in response. Then she said quietly, 'Yeah… here I am.'

When they both fell silent, Henry took it as his cue to walk back into the room. Holding the melting ice cream against his chest, he nudged the door open with his knee and stepped out into the hallway.

He nearly dropped it when he saw his mothers through the doorway.

Regina's hand was resting on the table. Underneath it, with its fingers inexplicably laced through Regina's, was Emma's.

His mouth went very, very dry. He found himself stumbling back into the kitchen before either of them could spot him.

He dropped the ice cream on the counter and ran his icy fingers through his hair.

_That wasn't… I must have seen it wrong. They couldn't be. They weren't…_

Although he knew exactly what he had seen. He was a boy who was hidden from most things, and so had learned to see them all. He had seen Regina gently stroking Emma's palm with the pad of her thumb, and he had seen the way that Emma's cheeks had flushed a deep, contented pink.

He shook his head. _How…?_

He couldn't seem to finish the question. He wasn't sure whether he was more confused by how this had happened, or how he hadn't let himself truly believe it before now.

He was pacing around the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest, when he heard his name.

'Henry?' Regina called from the other side of the door. 'Are you alright?'

Within a second Henry had grabbed hold of the melting ice cream, skidded back across the kitchen to the freezer and thrown it towards the back.

'I'm fine,' he replied, hearing footsteps reaching the door. 'I just can't find the ice cream.'

Regina was at his side a moment later, bending down to the same level as him. As she peered into the freezer, he turned his gaze to rest on her face.

_She's happy_, he realised. _She's so, so happy_.

'Here it is,' she said, smiling at him as she reached to the very back of the freezer to pull it out. 'Do you want to get the bowls?'

'Sure,' he said, dragging his eyes away from her.

As he stumbled across the room to collect the dishes, Regina looked down at the tub of ice cream in her hand.

She frowned.

_It's warm_, she thought, squeezing her fingers against the sides of the tub. They bended.

_…how is it warm?_


End file.
